THE WOODPECKER'S HOME. 
107 
they encourage one another by coveted caresses; never desisting from 
their efforts until the new home is rendered secure, convenient, and of 
sufficient dimensions. They continue at their toil day after day until 
a late hour in the evening; and their rapid strokes, like those of a 
hammer, may be heard long after Nature's minstrelsy is hushed for the 
night. The burrow or tunnel is carried diagonally into the solid 
timber for some six or eight inches, and then driven perpendicularly 
downwards. This tunnel is only just large enough to admit of the 
passage of the bird's body, but it terminates in quite a spacious chamber. 
Ingenious as is this construction, it does not preserve the little 
architects against all enemies. The common house-wren, fully appre- 
ciating its comfortable character, takes possession of it, and by his 
unconquerable audacity repels all attempts of the woodpeckers to 
recover their own. A yet more dangerous foe is the black snake, 
which watches the departure of the parent birds in quest of food, then 
slides up the tree, makes its way into the temporarily deserted nest, 
banquets on the eggs or the callow youngsters, and makes itself entirely 
at home. Sic vos non nobis ! This unprincipled usurpation of the 
results of another's industry is not unfamiliar to workers in the 
realms of art and literature. 
One of the most graceful of the later poems of William Cullen 
Bryant is dedicated to the bob-o'-link, Robert of Lincoln, rice-bird, 
reed-bird, or rice-bunting, — for by all these names he is known, — 
which in spring and summer ranges over the United States as far 
as the Illinois and the banks of the broad St. Lawrence, and in winter 
confines himself to the warmer regions of Mexico, Central America, 
and Bx-azil. Let us take the poet's description of him : — 
" Merrily swinging on brier and weed, 
Near to the nest of his little dame, 
Over the mountain-side or mead, 
Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Snug and safe is that nest of ours, 
Hidden among the summer flowers ! 
Chee, chee, chee." 
