ABOUT THE WOODPECKER. 
105 
bill, wearing them not so much for purposes of ornament as from a 
belief in their talismanic properties. It is a fancy of the Indians that 
the head, skin, or even feathers, of certain birds possess the property of 
endowing the wearer with the admirable qualities of these birds ; and 
the woodpecker is esteemed for courage and mettle. The receipt for 
making an Indian hero would seem to be curiously simple ! 
The woodpecker feeds exclusively on insects and their larvse, 
which he industriously hunts up in the trunks of venerable trees. He 
seeks the giants of the forest ; seeming, says Wilson, particularly 
attached to the cypress swamps, where each colossus stretches its bare 
and blasted or mossy arms midway to the skies. In these almost 
impenetrable recesses the echoes repeat his trumpet-like notes and the 
loud repeated strokes of his powerful bill. His favourites are readily 
"tapping the nOLLOW BKECH-TKEE " 
known by the memorials of his industry. Heaps of bark may be seen 
lying at the foot of the huge pine-ti-ees, and chips of the trunk in such 
quantities as to suggest to the traveller the idea that he has suddenly 
come upon a place where a company of woodmen have been at work. 
The body of the tree is also cut up into cavities so numerous and so 
large that it seems impossible to believe they have been effected by a 
woodpecker's bill. Yet such is the case. Not that all this industry of 
his has been directed against the vitality and well-being of the forest- 
trees. On the contrary, he has sought to deliver them from the insect- 
plagues which would silently but surely undermine their vigorous life. 
Of the energy and persistency of this bird "Wilson furnishes an 
interesting illustration. At some distance from Wilmington, in North 
Carolina, he caught an individual which he had slightly wounded in 
the wing. On finding himself a captive, he uttered a loudly repeated 
