THE LADIES MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
271 
of the birds are wonderfully well adapted. That of our present species, 
though contractible to little more than an inch in length, the bird can 
elongate at pleasure to six inches. The extreme point of the tongue is 
like a slender bowl of a spoon, with barbs on the edges, raking backward 
from the point; so that any soft body, like that of the wood maggot, is 
sure to be drawn out into the bill of the bird. Notwithstanding the 
whole lives of these birds are employed in the destruction of wood-eating 
insects,—consequently being of incalculable service to the timber owner 
and planter,—they are a proscribed race. They are untruly charged with 
making oeilet-holes in trees to admit moisture, and cause rottenness. 
Now the fact is, the woodpeckers never wound a sound tree : if insects 
have begun depredations, the birds will dig or draw the worms out; and 
if a tree be hollow, they will cut a passage from the outside to the interior 
cavity to nestle in. But in doing this, they do no damage, neither 
increasing the old defect nor causing new. The laugh, or call of the 
green woodpecker, is one of those rural sounds which intimate the 
approach of summer, and is frequently repeated during the breeding season. 
After pairing, they set about preparing a breeding-place. This, as 
already observed, is always in trees which are hollow within. And 
though this hollowness may not be perceivable, nor even suspected by the 
forester, the birds discover it by some means or other, and immediately 
begin chiselling out an exactly round passage, just large enough to 
admit them into the decayed part of the tree within. As this rot¬ 
tenness of the timber is caused by a dead branch rotting back into the 
interior, the entrance made by the bird is always some distance below 
the original wound. When they have formed a chamber large enough 
for their purpose, the eggs are laid, and the young, when full feathered, 
issue from the hole and creep about it, clinging to the bark in an erect 
position, to be fed by the old ones for some days, before they take wing 
and go in quest of food with them. While in this stage of their life, they 
often fall a prey to the sparrow-hawk; and even the old ones have diffi¬ 
culty in escaping, if the hawk be very hard pressed for food. 
The greater-spotted Woodpecker, or Jar-bird (P. major). A 
species not quite so common as the green one, but a beautifully-marked 
bird. Their economy in feeding, breeding, &c., is much like the preced¬ 
ing, but they are not so ready in cutting out new entrances for them¬ 
selves, if they can find a last year’s one deserted by the green species. 
They are called jar-birds by the woodmen, from the power they have of 
making a peculiar jarring noise when searching for food. This they do 
on the dead branches or tops of trees, and which are much worm-eaten. 
Many insects lodge in these holes; and to rouse them,, the bird places 
