88 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



of frogs. This noise is continued throughout the night, and those 

 who have visited the great nesting-places of the Petrel, unite in 

 mentioning it as a loud and peculiar sound. The ordinary cry is 

 low and short, something like the quacking of a young duck. 

 By day, however, the birds are silent, and only those who keep 

 nightly watch on the ship's deck can have an opportunity of hear- 

 ing their chattering cry. 



The burrow in which the young Petrel is hatched is extremely 

 odoriferous, the oily food on which the bird lives having itself a 

 very rancid and unsavory scent ; and in consequence of feeding 

 upon this substance, both the habitation and the inmates are ex- 

 tremely offensive to the nostrils. The young bird is at first 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 in 

 vain pursuit of the supposed cripple. 



The birds that have hitherto been mentioned are either bur- 

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

 maiGe 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 ex- 

 cavations made by other creatures, and the hollows formed by 

 natural decay. 



' The first in order of these birds are necessarily the Woodpeck- 

 BES, examples of which are found in most parts of the world. 

 They are easily-distinguished from any other birds by the pecul- 

 iar construction of the beak, the feet, and the tail ; the beak ena- 

 bling them to chip away the bark and wood, the feet giving them 

 the power of clinging to the tree-trunk, and the tail helping to sup- 

 port them in the attitude which gives to their strokes the great- 

 est force. Their beaks are long, powerful, straight, and pointed ; - 

 their feet are formed for grasping, and are set far back upon the 

 body ; and their tails are short and stiff, and act as props when 

 pressed against the roiagh bark. 



Froni England, the Woodpeckers are fast disappearing, and ex- 

 cept in the few forests and woods that still remain, a Woodpecker 

 is now seldom seen in this country. The birds, however, possess 

 that remarkable instinct which tells them where they will be safe ; 



