120 
WANDERINGS IN 
SECOND 
JOURNEY. 
Wood¬ 
peckers. 
cannot help stopping to admire them as they wave 
to and fro, the sport of every storm and breeze. 
The rump is chestnut; ten feathers of the tail are 
a fine yellow, the remaining two, which are the 
middle ones, are black, and an inch shorter than the 
others. His bill is sulphur colour; all the rest of 
the body black, with here and there shades of brown. 
He has five or six long narrow black feathers on the 
back of his head, which he erects at pleasure. 
There is one more species of cassique in Deme- 
rara, which always prefers the forests to the culti¬ 
vated parts. His economy is the same as that of 
the other cassiques. He is rather smaller than the 
last described bird. His body is greenish, and his 
tail and rump paler than those of the former. Half 
of his beak is red. 
You would not be long in the forests of Demerara, 
without noticing the woodpeckers. You meet with 
them feeding at all hours of the day. Well may 
they do so. Were they to follow the example of 
most of the other birds, and only feed in the morning 
and evening, they would be often on short allowance, 
for they sometimes have to labour three or four hours 
at the tree before they get to their food. The sound 
which the largest kind makes in hammering against 
the bark of the tree, is so loud, that you would never 
suppose it to proceed from the efforts of a bird. You 
would take it to be the woodman, with his axe, trying 
by a sturdy blow, often repeated, whether the tree 
were sound or not. There are fourteen species here; 
the largest the size of a magpie, the smallest no 
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