1 6 IN BIRD LAND. 



the swamp, and had wondered how he could hold 

 himself with his claws to so meagre a support. It 

 was a problem. How much I longed to solve it ! 

 However, for a long time the bird so completely 

 baffled me that I felt like another Tantalus. One 

 winter day, however, he happened to be quite near 

 the ground as I stood beneath the willows, so that 

 I could see just how he accomplished the mysteri- 

 ous feat. Imagine my surprise ! He did not cling 

 to the withes with his claws at all, as he clings to a 

 tree-trunk or a large bough, but grasped the slender 

 perches with his feet, precisely as if they were hands, 

 flinging his long toes, like fingers, clear around the 

 stems, one foot above the other. In ascending, he 

 would go foot over foot ; in descending, he would 

 simply loosen his hold slightly and slip down. Sir 

 Isaac Newton may have made more important dis- 

 coveries, but he did not feel prouder or happier 

 when he solved the binomial theorem than did I 

 when my little avian problem was solved. I am not 

 aware that any one else has ever described this 

 performance, and am strongly tempted to announce 

 it as an original discovery. Yet a certain writer 

 once declared, patronizingly, that there are some 

 writers — himself excepted, of course — on natural 

 history themes who proclaim as original discoveries 

 many facts that are perfectly familiar to every tyro 

 in science. Spite of the scornful reflection, however, 

 it is my modest opinion that there are very few 

 observers who have seen a woodpecker ascending a 

 willow-withe foot over foot. 



