no 
LITTLE FOLKS 
THE BIRD WHO CARRIES A PICKAXE. 
Not an iron one — ^such as men work with— of course, but a neat 
little bone pickaxe, just fitted to his size, and hard enough to bore 
holes into solid trees. Not that he injures solid trees, as people 
used to think he did ; he much prefers a hollow tree, or one 
dead inside, for his nest. For his food — which he digs out with 
his pickaxe — he only goes 
where the worms already 
are. 
To make the nest, the 
Woodpecker finds a hol- 
low tree, which he can 
tell by tapping on it. 
Then he cuts a passage 
from the outside, hollows 
out the nest in the dead 
part, makes a bed of wood- 
dust or moss, and there's 
his house all ready for his 
family. 
Another curious 
thing about this littlq 
worker, besides his pick- 
axe, is his feet. His toes, 
instead of standing three 
one way and one the other 
— like most birds — stand 
in pairs, two each way. 
That is so that he can 
hold on very tightly. He 
stands — as you've seen 
him no doubt — on the 
side of the trunk, and he 
can run around it as fast as any other bird can run forward. So 
you see, he needs a good grip. 
