160 
DOWNY WOODPECKER. 
violence, and generally succeeds in driving them off. I saw 
some weeks ago a striking example of this, where the Wood- 
peckers we are now describing, after commencing in a cherry 
tree within a few yards of the house, and having made consi- 
derable 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 apart- 
ment, and one egg being laid, they were once more assaulted 
by the same impertinent intruder, and finally forced to abandon 
the place. 
The principal characteristics of this little bird are diligence, 
familiarity, 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 labours 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, with- 
out in the least embarrassing 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 
66 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 labour 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, or 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. 
