DOWNY WOODPECKER. 105 
to admit the bodies of the owners. During this labor, they regularly 
oarry out the chips, often strowing them at a distance, to prevent sus- 
picion. This operation sometimes occupies the chief part of a week. 
Before she begins to lay, the female often visits the place, passes out 
and in, examines every part, both of the exterior and interior, with 
great attention, as every prudent tenant of a new house ought to do, 
and atlength takes complete possession. The eggs are generally six, 
pure white, and laid on the smooth bottom of the cavity. The male 
occasionally supplies the female with food while she is sitting; and 
about the last week in June the young are perceived makirig their way 
up the tree, climbing with considerable dexterity. All this goes on 
with great regularity where no interruption is met with; but the 
House Wren, who also builds in the hollow of a tree, but who is neither 
furnished with the necessary tools nor strength for excavating such an 
apartment for himself, allows the Woodpeckers to goon, till he thinks 
it will answer his purpose, then attacks them with violence, and gen- 
erally succeeds in driving them off. I saw some weeks ago a striking 
example of this, where the Woodpeckers we are now describing, after 
commencing in a cherry-tree, within a few yards of the house, and 
having made considerable progress, were turned out by the Wren; the 
former began again on a pear-tree in the garden, fifteen or twenty 
yards off, whence, after digging out a most complete apartment, and 
one egg being laid, they were once more assaulted by the same imper- 
tinent intruder, and finally forced to abandon the place. 
The principal characteristics of this little bird are diligence, famili- 
arity, perseverance, and a strength and energy in the head and muscles 
of the neck, which are truly astonishing. Mounted on the infected 
branch of an old apple-tree, where insects have lodged their corroding 
and destructive brood in crevices between the bark and wood, he labors 
sometimes for half an hour incessantly at the same spot, before he has 
succeeded in dislodging and destroying them. At these times you 
may walk up pretty close to the tree, and even stand immediately 
below it, within five or six feet of the bird, without in the least em- 
barrassing him; the strokes of his bill are distinctly heard several 
hundred yards off; and I have known him to be at work for two hours 
together on the same tree. Buffon calls this “incessant toil and_ 
slavery ;” their attitude, “a painful posture;” and their life, “a dull 
and insipid existence ;” expressions improper, because untrue; and 
absurd, because contradictory. The posture is that for which the 
whole organization of his frame is particularly adapted; and though, 
to a Wren or a Humming Bird, the labor would be both toil and slavery, 
yet to him it is, I am convinced, as pleasant and as amusing, as the 
sports of the chase to the hunter, er the sucking of flowers to the 
Humming Bird. The eagerness with which he traverses the upper 
and lower sides of the branches ; the cheerfulness of his cry, and the 
liveliness of his motions while digging into the tree and dislodging the 
vermin, justify this belief. He has a single note, or chink, which, like 
the former species, he frequently repeats; and when he flies off, or 
alights on another tree, he utters a rather shriller ery, composed of 
nearly the same kind of note, quickly reiterated. In fall and winter, 
he associates with the Titmouse, Creeper, &c., both in their wood and 
orchard excursions, and usually leads the van. Of all our Wood- 
