THE CANADIAN FOREST. 113 



pedes ; or clothed with green turf is thickly sprinkled 

 with the pale orchis, or thickly with the broad-leaved 

 May-apple.* 



The silence of the forest is broken only, and rendered 

 even more striking, by the occasional loud tapping of 

 some busy woodpecker, of which industrious birds there 

 are an extraordinary variety. I have preserved speci- 

 mens of several of the most interesting among them : 

 viz., the yellow-winged woodpecker,f which is the largest 

 of the family, and is the workman by whom are so neatly 

 drilled the large round holes, so often seen placed close 

 together high up in the trunks of old trees ; also the 

 black and white woodpecker, the grey, the " hairy," 

 and the diminutive downy woodpecker, with its crimson 

 crown and breast of primrose. 



Emerging suddenly from the cool and solemn forest 

 shades on some sunny clearing, echoing with the shrill 

 chirp of locusts and fragrant with the sweet-scented 

 vine, gorgeous butterflies are seen sailing from plant to 

 plant, and flocks of the red-winged starling, or Field 



* PodopJiyllum peltatum. This is a delicious and refreshing wild fruit, 

 of a deep yellow colour, and about the size of a bantam's egg, somewhat 

 similar in appearance to the loquat. When stripped of its outer skin it 

 presents a mass of juicy pulp and seeds, not unlike pine-apple in flavour. 

 The plant is of low growth, and has deeply indented broad leaves and a 

 simple white blossom. 



t Ficus auralus. 



