PICUS PUBESCENS. 
1(54 PICUS PUBESCENS. 
immediately liolow it, within five or six feet of the hird. 
without in the least embarrassing him ; the st^^e, 
his hill are distinctly heard several hundred 
and I have known him to he at work tor t wo no 
toirether on the same tree. Biiffou calls this “ incessa 
toll and slavery,” their attitude “ a painful 
and their life “ a dull and insipid existence;” expressio 
improper, because untrue; and absurd, because co 
tradictory. The posture is that for which the wu% 
oroanization of his frame is particulai'ly adapted ; ^ 
though, to a wren or a hnmming-hird, the labour wo , 
be both toil and slavery, yet to him it is, I ^ 
as pleasant and as amusing, as the sports of the cl 
to the hunter, or the sucking of llowere to the hn 
ming-hird. The eagerness with which he traver. 
the upper and lower sides of the branches ,• the chee 
fulness of his cry, and the liveliness ot his motio 
while digging into the tree and dislodging the veim 
iustify this belief. He has a single note, or 
which, like the former species, he frequently rept» 
And when he flies off, or alights on another tree, 
utters a rather shriller cry, composed of nearlV ^ 
same kind of note, quickly reiterated. In fall ‘ , 
M-inter, he associates with the titmouse, creeper, *>1. 
both in their wood and orchard excursions ; and 
leads the van. Of all our woodpeckers, none rid t 
apple-trees of so many vermin as this, digging ofl 
luoss which the negligence of the proprietor had s 
fered to accumulate, and probing every 
tiict, the orchard is his favourite resort m aU seaso 
and his industry is unequalled, and almost incessi ^ 
which is more than can be said of any other spe 
we have. In fall, he is particularly fond of boring ,, 
apple-trees for insects, digging a circular hole thro ^ 
the bark just suflicient to admit his hill, after tim ^ 
second, third, &c. in pretty regular horizontal cn 
round the body of the tree; these parallel circle 
holes are often not more than an inch or an inch * 
half apart, and sometimes so close together, that f ‘ 
covered eight or ten of them at once with a dollai’. 
