70 



homp:s without hands. 



very helpless, and remains in its excavated home until it is 

 several weeks of age. One of these birds was seen on the Thames 

 in the month of December, 1823, where it attracted some attention, 

 its peculiar mode of pattering over the water causing it to be 

 taken for a wounded land bird, and inducing many persons to go 

 iu vain pursuit of the supposed cripple. 



WdnLiPfX'KKlL. 



The birds that have hitherto been mentioned are either bur- 

 rowers into the earth, or adopters of burrows which have been 

 made and deserted by fossorial mammalia. Those which now 

 come before us are burrowers into wood, and either form their 

 tunnels with their own beaks, or adapt to their purposes the 

 excavations made by other creatures, and the hollows formed 

 by natural decay. 



The first in order of these birds are necessarily the Wood- 

 peckers, examples of which are found in most parts of the 

 world. Thoy are easily distinguished from any other birds 



