[Contents]CHAPTER XXIIIMORE ABOUT WOODPECKERS“The commonest of our woodpeckers is the green woodpecker, which is about as large as a turtle-dove. Its plumage has a richness rarely seen in that of any of our other birds. The top of the head and the nape of the neck are of a magnificent crimson; two mustaches of the same hue adorn the bird’s face; the back is green, the breast and stomach yellowish white, the rump yellow, and the large wing-feathers black with regular marks of white on the edge. The female has less brilliant coloring than the male and its mustaches are black instead of red.“It is the green woodpecker that you heard in the grove this morning, giving its cry ofteo, teo, teo. I will not go over what Jacques has already told you about its different cries. The green woodpecker is passionately fond of ants, and when it discovers an ant-hill it posts itself near by and stretches its long viscous tongue across the path the ants follow. You know these little creatures’ way of marching in long files, one or more, following the exact path taken by the leaders. The woodpecker’s viscous tongue is extended across this line of march. The ants from behind come up, hesitate a moment before the barricade,[178]and then venture upon the tongue, in order to follow their friends marching on ahead as if nothing had happened. Immediately we have one ant caught, then four, then ten, all struggling in the sticky mucilage covering the tongue. The woodpecker does not move, but remains quiet until its tongue is quite covered. Nor has it long to wait. Soon the living trap, laden with game, is withdrawn into the beak. Ah, that was a luscious mouthful! Without leaving the spot the ant-eater repeats this performance again and again, laying its tongue on the ground and then drawing it in black with ants, until its hunger is satisfied.”“Animals know more than one would think, as you said a while ago,” Emile remarked. “That trick of the woodpecker’s shows it plainly enough. Instead of picking the ants up one by one, which would be very slow work with such small game, the woodpecker takes them dozens at a time. It lays its tongue across their path on the ground, draws it in again when it is all plastered over with ants, and the thing is done. And the mouthful is well worth the trouble. Who would have thought of making a trap of one’s tongue, a trap that catches game with glue?”“But its passion for ants,” resumed Uncle Paul, “does not make the woodpecker neglect its duty as keeper of forests. It goes climbing up tree trunks, tapping the sickly parts, and pecking away with blows that at a distance sound like hammer strokes. If a passer-by interrupts it at its work it does not[179]immediately fly away, but runs around the trunk like a squirrel, and from the other side sticks out its head a little to see who or what is coming. If the intruder advances, the woodpecker goes on around the tree, always keeping on the opposite side until it becomes frightened, when it flies off, making the woods ring with its sonoroustiackackan, tiackackan. It flies with swift darts and bounds, swooping down, then rising, describing a series of undulating arches in the air.“For its nest it bores out a deep hole in soft-wood trees such as firs and poplars. Male and female work with lusty blows of the beak, taking turns at the hardest part of the task, the piercing of the live wood of the trunk, until the worm-eaten center is reached. Chips, wood-dust, and decayed fragments are dug out with the feet, and at last the hole is deep enough and slanting enough to exclude the light of day. The young ones leave the nest before they can fly, and they may be seen exercising near it, learning to climb, to run around the trunk of their tree, and to cling to it upside down. You will be amused to watch them if you ever have the good fortune to be present at the frolics of a young family of woodpeckers.“The great spotted woodpecker is about as large as a thrush. It has a wide red stripe across the nape of the neck, the upper part of the body is prettily spotted with pure white and deep black, and the under part is white as far as the abdomen, which is red, as is also the rump. The female has no[180]red on the nape of the neck. The food of this bird is the same as the green woodpecker’s. It strikes the tree with quicker, smarter blows, and if disturbed in its work it remains motionless in the shelter of a large branch with its green eyes fixed on the object of its distrust. Its cry is a kind of hoarse, grindingtrer-rer-rer-rer.“The variegated woodpecker much resembles the great spotted woodpecker in plumage, but is a little smaller. It is adorned with a red cap which covers the whole of the upper part and the back of the head, while the great spotted woodpecker has only a stripe of this color on the nape of the neck. Both these birds are found in the large wooded districts of France, and they live on the same diet,—insects, wood-boring larvæ, and ants. Also, because of their velvet costume of black and white and their scarlet cap, they are both to be ranked among the prettiest birds we have.“Let us add to them the little spotted woodpecker. It is smaller than a sparrow, and its dress is that of the great spotted woodpecker. This bird is found almost exclusively in the fir forests of the East and of the Pyrenees.“The wryneck is closely akin to the woodpeckers in the structure of its feet, whose four toes or talons are divided into two pairs, one pointing forward and the other backward, and in its very long and viscous tongue which it pushes into ant-hills or stretches out on the ground to receive the insects as they pass. It is a small bird, being no larger[181]than a lark. Its plumage is watered with black, brown, gray, and russet, somewhat like the woodcock’s, but with tints better defined and more beautiful in their combined effect. The wryneck is a great eater of caterpillars, and it is also passionately fond of ants, which it catches as does the woodpecker, with its sticky tongue laid on the ground across their path. Its name comes from the habit it has of twisting its neck and looking backward with a sort of slow and undulating movement like a snake’s.”“Why does it imitate a snake like that?” Emile inquired.“It is its way of expressing surprise and alarm; and perhaps it also hopes to frighten its foe with the motions. At any rate, it is sometimes successful. If a birdnest-hunter climbs up to its hole to steal its little ones, the wryneck emits, from the depths of its retreat, a sharp hissing and begins to make snake-like movements with its neck. The young birds, still featherless, imitate their mother to the best of their ability, and succeed so well that the hunter thinks he has thrust his hand into a nest of writhing and twisting flat-headed vipers. Thoroughly frightened, the boy clambers down, not without leaving some shreds of his breeches on the way.”“Serves the rascal right, too,” declared Emile.“The wryneck reaches us in April and leaves toward the end of summer. It haunts the outskirts of woods and visits gardens and orchards for caterpillars. It nests in a hole in a tree trunk and gladly avails itself of the woodpecker’s abandoned quarters[182]after furbishing them up a little to suit itself. The eggs, which are white and polished like the woodpecker’s, rest on a simple little bed of wood-dust that the bird dislodges from the walls of its hole with a few blows of its beak.“Despite the structure of its feet, the wryneck does not climb tree trunks and rarely even perches on them, preferring to stay on the ground and hunt caterpillars or stretch out its tongue in the ants’ path, which has given it, in the South, the name of stretch-tongue.“The nuthatch, on the contrary, though differing from the woodpecker in the formation of its claws, is a first-rate climber and spends its life running about on the trunks of trees, inspecting every crack and cranny for insects and pecking at the old bark. Three of its talons point forward, the fourth alone being turned in the opposite direction; but for firmness of support the last is worth two of the others, so thick and powerful is it, and the nail at the end so strong and hooked. The beak resembles the woodpecker’s, being straight, fluted lengthwise, and sharply pointed. It is an excellent tool for digging into wood and getting out the worms. The tongue cannot be projected like the woodpecker’s to catch insects with its glue, nor does the tail serve as a support.“The nuthatch examines old trees with painstaking care, going up and down the trunk repeatedly, or around it in a spiral, and sometimes visiting a branch above or below or on one side. Every crack[183]is explored with the point of the beak, to the accompaniment of the bird’s resonant cry,tuee, tuee, tuee, repeated again and again in a penetrating tone. Very few insects can escape so careful a search. If grubs are lacking, the nuthatch makes a frugal meal of a hazelnut. First it fixes the nut firmly in the fork made by two branches, and then it hammers away at it, encouraging itself the while by uttering its cry, until the hard shell is pierced and the kernel exposed.”“It must take the bird a long time to crack a hazelnut with its beak,” was the opinion of Jules.“No, it is done very quickly, the beak is so hard and pointed. Very quickly, too, a caged nuthatch will break through the woodwork of its prison and make an opening large enough to escape through. Not even the woodpecker has a better carpenter’s chisel.“The nuthatch is about as large as a sparrow. All the upper part of its plumage is of a bluish ash color, the throat and cheeks are white, and the breast and stomach red. A black stripe, starting from the corner of the beak, passes over the eye and down the side of the neck. This bird nests in a hole in a tree trunk and it knows how, if need be, to make the opening of the nest smaller with a little moistened clay. Its eggs, from five to seven in number, are laid on moss or wood-dust and are of a dingy white dotted with red. It gets its name of nuthatch (which means nuthacker) from its way of hacking the nuts it is so fond of.”[184]
[Contents]CHAPTER XXIIIMORE ABOUT WOODPECKERS“The commonest of our woodpeckers is the green woodpecker, which is about as large as a turtle-dove. Its plumage has a richness rarely seen in that of any of our other birds. The top of the head and the nape of the neck are of a magnificent crimson; two mustaches of the same hue adorn the bird’s face; the back is green, the breast and stomach yellowish white, the rump yellow, and the large wing-feathers black with regular marks of white on the edge. The female has less brilliant coloring than the male and its mustaches are black instead of red.“It is the green woodpecker that you heard in the grove this morning, giving its cry ofteo, teo, teo. I will not go over what Jacques has already told you about its different cries. The green woodpecker is passionately fond of ants, and when it discovers an ant-hill it posts itself near by and stretches its long viscous tongue across the path the ants follow. You know these little creatures’ way of marching in long files, one or more, following the exact path taken by the leaders. The woodpecker’s viscous tongue is extended across this line of march. The ants from behind come up, hesitate a moment before the barricade,[178]and then venture upon the tongue, in order to follow their friends marching on ahead as if nothing had happened. Immediately we have one ant caught, then four, then ten, all struggling in the sticky mucilage covering the tongue. The woodpecker does not move, but remains quiet until its tongue is quite covered. Nor has it long to wait. Soon the living trap, laden with game, is withdrawn into the beak. Ah, that was a luscious mouthful! Without leaving the spot the ant-eater repeats this performance again and again, laying its tongue on the ground and then drawing it in black with ants, until its hunger is satisfied.”“Animals know more than one would think, as you said a while ago,” Emile remarked. “That trick of the woodpecker’s shows it plainly enough. Instead of picking the ants up one by one, which would be very slow work with such small game, the woodpecker takes them dozens at a time. It lays its tongue across their path on the ground, draws it in again when it is all plastered over with ants, and the thing is done. And the mouthful is well worth the trouble. Who would have thought of making a trap of one’s tongue, a trap that catches game with glue?”“But its passion for ants,” resumed Uncle Paul, “does not make the woodpecker neglect its duty as keeper of forests. It goes climbing up tree trunks, tapping the sickly parts, and pecking away with blows that at a distance sound like hammer strokes. If a passer-by interrupts it at its work it does not[179]immediately fly away, but runs around the trunk like a squirrel, and from the other side sticks out its head a little to see who or what is coming. If the intruder advances, the woodpecker goes on around the tree, always keeping on the opposite side until it becomes frightened, when it flies off, making the woods ring with its sonoroustiackackan, tiackackan. It flies with swift darts and bounds, swooping down, then rising, describing a series of undulating arches in the air.“For its nest it bores out a deep hole in soft-wood trees such as firs and poplars. Male and female work with lusty blows of the beak, taking turns at the hardest part of the task, the piercing of the live wood of the trunk, until the worm-eaten center is reached. Chips, wood-dust, and decayed fragments are dug out with the feet, and at last the hole is deep enough and slanting enough to exclude the light of day. The young ones leave the nest before they can fly, and they may be seen exercising near it, learning to climb, to run around the trunk of their tree, and to cling to it upside down. You will be amused to watch them if you ever have the good fortune to be present at the frolics of a young family of woodpeckers.“The great spotted woodpecker is about as large as a thrush. It has a wide red stripe across the nape of the neck, the upper part of the body is prettily spotted with pure white and deep black, and the under part is white as far as the abdomen, which is red, as is also the rump. The female has no[180]red on the nape of the neck. The food of this bird is the same as the green woodpecker’s. It strikes the tree with quicker, smarter blows, and if disturbed in its work it remains motionless in the shelter of a large branch with its green eyes fixed on the object of its distrust. Its cry is a kind of hoarse, grindingtrer-rer-rer-rer.“The variegated woodpecker much resembles the great spotted woodpecker in plumage, but is a little smaller. It is adorned with a red cap which covers the whole of the upper part and the back of the head, while the great spotted woodpecker has only a stripe of this color on the nape of the neck. Both these birds are found in the large wooded districts of France, and they live on the same diet,—insects, wood-boring larvæ, and ants. Also, because of their velvet costume of black and white and their scarlet cap, they are both to be ranked among the prettiest birds we have.“Let us add to them the little spotted woodpecker. It is smaller than a sparrow, and its dress is that of the great spotted woodpecker. This bird is found almost exclusively in the fir forests of the East and of the Pyrenees.“The wryneck is closely akin to the woodpeckers in the structure of its feet, whose four toes or talons are divided into two pairs, one pointing forward and the other backward, and in its very long and viscous tongue which it pushes into ant-hills or stretches out on the ground to receive the insects as they pass. It is a small bird, being no larger[181]than a lark. Its plumage is watered with black, brown, gray, and russet, somewhat like the woodcock’s, but with tints better defined and more beautiful in their combined effect. The wryneck is a great eater of caterpillars, and it is also passionately fond of ants, which it catches as does the woodpecker, with its sticky tongue laid on the ground across their path. Its name comes from the habit it has of twisting its neck and looking backward with a sort of slow and undulating movement like a snake’s.”“Why does it imitate a snake like that?” Emile inquired.“It is its way of expressing surprise and alarm; and perhaps it also hopes to frighten its foe with the motions. At any rate, it is sometimes successful. If a birdnest-hunter climbs up to its hole to steal its little ones, the wryneck emits, from the depths of its retreat, a sharp hissing and begins to make snake-like movements with its neck. The young birds, still featherless, imitate their mother to the best of their ability, and succeed so well that the hunter thinks he has thrust his hand into a nest of writhing and twisting flat-headed vipers. Thoroughly frightened, the boy clambers down, not without leaving some shreds of his breeches on the way.”“Serves the rascal right, too,” declared Emile.“The wryneck reaches us in April and leaves toward the end of summer. It haunts the outskirts of woods and visits gardens and orchards for caterpillars. It nests in a hole in a tree trunk and gladly avails itself of the woodpecker’s abandoned quarters[182]after furbishing them up a little to suit itself. The eggs, which are white and polished like the woodpecker’s, rest on a simple little bed of wood-dust that the bird dislodges from the walls of its hole with a few blows of its beak.“Despite the structure of its feet, the wryneck does not climb tree trunks and rarely even perches on them, preferring to stay on the ground and hunt caterpillars or stretch out its tongue in the ants’ path, which has given it, in the South, the name of stretch-tongue.“The nuthatch, on the contrary, though differing from the woodpecker in the formation of its claws, is a first-rate climber and spends its life running about on the trunks of trees, inspecting every crack and cranny for insects and pecking at the old bark. Three of its talons point forward, the fourth alone being turned in the opposite direction; but for firmness of support the last is worth two of the others, so thick and powerful is it, and the nail at the end so strong and hooked. The beak resembles the woodpecker’s, being straight, fluted lengthwise, and sharply pointed. It is an excellent tool for digging into wood and getting out the worms. The tongue cannot be projected like the woodpecker’s to catch insects with its glue, nor does the tail serve as a support.“The nuthatch examines old trees with painstaking care, going up and down the trunk repeatedly, or around it in a spiral, and sometimes visiting a branch above or below or on one side. Every crack[183]is explored with the point of the beak, to the accompaniment of the bird’s resonant cry,tuee, tuee, tuee, repeated again and again in a penetrating tone. Very few insects can escape so careful a search. If grubs are lacking, the nuthatch makes a frugal meal of a hazelnut. First it fixes the nut firmly in the fork made by two branches, and then it hammers away at it, encouraging itself the while by uttering its cry, until the hard shell is pierced and the kernel exposed.”“It must take the bird a long time to crack a hazelnut with its beak,” was the opinion of Jules.“No, it is done very quickly, the beak is so hard and pointed. Very quickly, too, a caged nuthatch will break through the woodwork of its prison and make an opening large enough to escape through. Not even the woodpecker has a better carpenter’s chisel.“The nuthatch is about as large as a sparrow. All the upper part of its plumage is of a bluish ash color, the throat and cheeks are white, and the breast and stomach red. A black stripe, starting from the corner of the beak, passes over the eye and down the side of the neck. This bird nests in a hole in a tree trunk and it knows how, if need be, to make the opening of the nest smaller with a little moistened clay. Its eggs, from five to seven in number, are laid on moss or wood-dust and are of a dingy white dotted with red. It gets its name of nuthatch (which means nuthacker) from its way of hacking the nuts it is so fond of.”[184]
CHAPTER XXIIIMORE ABOUT WOODPECKERS
“The commonest of our woodpeckers is the green woodpecker, which is about as large as a turtle-dove. Its plumage has a richness rarely seen in that of any of our other birds. The top of the head and the nape of the neck are of a magnificent crimson; two mustaches of the same hue adorn the bird’s face; the back is green, the breast and stomach yellowish white, the rump yellow, and the large wing-feathers black with regular marks of white on the edge. The female has less brilliant coloring than the male and its mustaches are black instead of red.“It is the green woodpecker that you heard in the grove this morning, giving its cry ofteo, teo, teo. I will not go over what Jacques has already told you about its different cries. The green woodpecker is passionately fond of ants, and when it discovers an ant-hill it posts itself near by and stretches its long viscous tongue across the path the ants follow. You know these little creatures’ way of marching in long files, one or more, following the exact path taken by the leaders. The woodpecker’s viscous tongue is extended across this line of march. The ants from behind come up, hesitate a moment before the barricade,[178]and then venture upon the tongue, in order to follow their friends marching on ahead as if nothing had happened. Immediately we have one ant caught, then four, then ten, all struggling in the sticky mucilage covering the tongue. The woodpecker does not move, but remains quiet until its tongue is quite covered. Nor has it long to wait. Soon the living trap, laden with game, is withdrawn into the beak. Ah, that was a luscious mouthful! Without leaving the spot the ant-eater repeats this performance again and again, laying its tongue on the ground and then drawing it in black with ants, until its hunger is satisfied.”“Animals know more than one would think, as you said a while ago,” Emile remarked. “That trick of the woodpecker’s shows it plainly enough. Instead of picking the ants up one by one, which would be very slow work with such small game, the woodpecker takes them dozens at a time. It lays its tongue across their path on the ground, draws it in again when it is all plastered over with ants, and the thing is done. And the mouthful is well worth the trouble. Who would have thought of making a trap of one’s tongue, a trap that catches game with glue?”“But its passion for ants,” resumed Uncle Paul, “does not make the woodpecker neglect its duty as keeper of forests. It goes climbing up tree trunks, tapping the sickly parts, and pecking away with blows that at a distance sound like hammer strokes. If a passer-by interrupts it at its work it does not[179]immediately fly away, but runs around the trunk like a squirrel, and from the other side sticks out its head a little to see who or what is coming. If the intruder advances, the woodpecker goes on around the tree, always keeping on the opposite side until it becomes frightened, when it flies off, making the woods ring with its sonoroustiackackan, tiackackan. It flies with swift darts and bounds, swooping down, then rising, describing a series of undulating arches in the air.“For its nest it bores out a deep hole in soft-wood trees such as firs and poplars. Male and female work with lusty blows of the beak, taking turns at the hardest part of the task, the piercing of the live wood of the trunk, until the worm-eaten center is reached. Chips, wood-dust, and decayed fragments are dug out with the feet, and at last the hole is deep enough and slanting enough to exclude the light of day. The young ones leave the nest before they can fly, and they may be seen exercising near it, learning to climb, to run around the trunk of their tree, and to cling to it upside down. You will be amused to watch them if you ever have the good fortune to be present at the frolics of a young family of woodpeckers.“The great spotted woodpecker is about as large as a thrush. It has a wide red stripe across the nape of the neck, the upper part of the body is prettily spotted with pure white and deep black, and the under part is white as far as the abdomen, which is red, as is also the rump. The female has no[180]red on the nape of the neck. The food of this bird is the same as the green woodpecker’s. It strikes the tree with quicker, smarter blows, and if disturbed in its work it remains motionless in the shelter of a large branch with its green eyes fixed on the object of its distrust. Its cry is a kind of hoarse, grindingtrer-rer-rer-rer.“The variegated woodpecker much resembles the great spotted woodpecker in plumage, but is a little smaller. It is adorned with a red cap which covers the whole of the upper part and the back of the head, while the great spotted woodpecker has only a stripe of this color on the nape of the neck. Both these birds are found in the large wooded districts of France, and they live on the same diet,—insects, wood-boring larvæ, and ants. Also, because of their velvet costume of black and white and their scarlet cap, they are both to be ranked among the prettiest birds we have.“Let us add to them the little spotted woodpecker. It is smaller than a sparrow, and its dress is that of the great spotted woodpecker. This bird is found almost exclusively in the fir forests of the East and of the Pyrenees.“The wryneck is closely akin to the woodpeckers in the structure of its feet, whose four toes or talons are divided into two pairs, one pointing forward and the other backward, and in its very long and viscous tongue which it pushes into ant-hills or stretches out on the ground to receive the insects as they pass. It is a small bird, being no larger[181]than a lark. Its plumage is watered with black, brown, gray, and russet, somewhat like the woodcock’s, but with tints better defined and more beautiful in their combined effect. The wryneck is a great eater of caterpillars, and it is also passionately fond of ants, which it catches as does the woodpecker, with its sticky tongue laid on the ground across their path. Its name comes from the habit it has of twisting its neck and looking backward with a sort of slow and undulating movement like a snake’s.”“Why does it imitate a snake like that?” Emile inquired.“It is its way of expressing surprise and alarm; and perhaps it also hopes to frighten its foe with the motions. At any rate, it is sometimes successful. If a birdnest-hunter climbs up to its hole to steal its little ones, the wryneck emits, from the depths of its retreat, a sharp hissing and begins to make snake-like movements with its neck. The young birds, still featherless, imitate their mother to the best of their ability, and succeed so well that the hunter thinks he has thrust his hand into a nest of writhing and twisting flat-headed vipers. Thoroughly frightened, the boy clambers down, not without leaving some shreds of his breeches on the way.”“Serves the rascal right, too,” declared Emile.“The wryneck reaches us in April and leaves toward the end of summer. It haunts the outskirts of woods and visits gardens and orchards for caterpillars. It nests in a hole in a tree trunk and gladly avails itself of the woodpecker’s abandoned quarters[182]after furbishing them up a little to suit itself. The eggs, which are white and polished like the woodpecker’s, rest on a simple little bed of wood-dust that the bird dislodges from the walls of its hole with a few blows of its beak.“Despite the structure of its feet, the wryneck does not climb tree trunks and rarely even perches on them, preferring to stay on the ground and hunt caterpillars or stretch out its tongue in the ants’ path, which has given it, in the South, the name of stretch-tongue.“The nuthatch, on the contrary, though differing from the woodpecker in the formation of its claws, is a first-rate climber and spends its life running about on the trunks of trees, inspecting every crack and cranny for insects and pecking at the old bark. Three of its talons point forward, the fourth alone being turned in the opposite direction; but for firmness of support the last is worth two of the others, so thick and powerful is it, and the nail at the end so strong and hooked. The beak resembles the woodpecker’s, being straight, fluted lengthwise, and sharply pointed. It is an excellent tool for digging into wood and getting out the worms. The tongue cannot be projected like the woodpecker’s to catch insects with its glue, nor does the tail serve as a support.“The nuthatch examines old trees with painstaking care, going up and down the trunk repeatedly, or around it in a spiral, and sometimes visiting a branch above or below or on one side. Every crack[183]is explored with the point of the beak, to the accompaniment of the bird’s resonant cry,tuee, tuee, tuee, repeated again and again in a penetrating tone. Very few insects can escape so careful a search. If grubs are lacking, the nuthatch makes a frugal meal of a hazelnut. First it fixes the nut firmly in the fork made by two branches, and then it hammers away at it, encouraging itself the while by uttering its cry, until the hard shell is pierced and the kernel exposed.”“It must take the bird a long time to crack a hazelnut with its beak,” was the opinion of Jules.“No, it is done very quickly, the beak is so hard and pointed. Very quickly, too, a caged nuthatch will break through the woodwork of its prison and make an opening large enough to escape through. Not even the woodpecker has a better carpenter’s chisel.“The nuthatch is about as large as a sparrow. All the upper part of its plumage is of a bluish ash color, the throat and cheeks are white, and the breast and stomach red. A black stripe, starting from the corner of the beak, passes over the eye and down the side of the neck. This bird nests in a hole in a tree trunk and it knows how, if need be, to make the opening of the nest smaller with a little moistened clay. Its eggs, from five to seven in number, are laid on moss or wood-dust and are of a dingy white dotted with red. It gets its name of nuthatch (which means nuthacker) from its way of hacking the nuts it is so fond of.”[184]
“The commonest of our woodpeckers is the green woodpecker, which is about as large as a turtle-dove. Its plumage has a richness rarely seen in that of any of our other birds. The top of the head and the nape of the neck are of a magnificent crimson; two mustaches of the same hue adorn the bird’s face; the back is green, the breast and stomach yellowish white, the rump yellow, and the large wing-feathers black with regular marks of white on the edge. The female has less brilliant coloring than the male and its mustaches are black instead of red.
“It is the green woodpecker that you heard in the grove this morning, giving its cry ofteo, teo, teo. I will not go over what Jacques has already told you about its different cries. The green woodpecker is passionately fond of ants, and when it discovers an ant-hill it posts itself near by and stretches its long viscous tongue across the path the ants follow. You know these little creatures’ way of marching in long files, one or more, following the exact path taken by the leaders. The woodpecker’s viscous tongue is extended across this line of march. The ants from behind come up, hesitate a moment before the barricade,[178]and then venture upon the tongue, in order to follow their friends marching on ahead as if nothing had happened. Immediately we have one ant caught, then four, then ten, all struggling in the sticky mucilage covering the tongue. The woodpecker does not move, but remains quiet until its tongue is quite covered. Nor has it long to wait. Soon the living trap, laden with game, is withdrawn into the beak. Ah, that was a luscious mouthful! Without leaving the spot the ant-eater repeats this performance again and again, laying its tongue on the ground and then drawing it in black with ants, until its hunger is satisfied.”
“Animals know more than one would think, as you said a while ago,” Emile remarked. “That trick of the woodpecker’s shows it plainly enough. Instead of picking the ants up one by one, which would be very slow work with such small game, the woodpecker takes them dozens at a time. It lays its tongue across their path on the ground, draws it in again when it is all plastered over with ants, and the thing is done. And the mouthful is well worth the trouble. Who would have thought of making a trap of one’s tongue, a trap that catches game with glue?”
“But its passion for ants,” resumed Uncle Paul, “does not make the woodpecker neglect its duty as keeper of forests. It goes climbing up tree trunks, tapping the sickly parts, and pecking away with blows that at a distance sound like hammer strokes. If a passer-by interrupts it at its work it does not[179]immediately fly away, but runs around the trunk like a squirrel, and from the other side sticks out its head a little to see who or what is coming. If the intruder advances, the woodpecker goes on around the tree, always keeping on the opposite side until it becomes frightened, when it flies off, making the woods ring with its sonoroustiackackan, tiackackan. It flies with swift darts and bounds, swooping down, then rising, describing a series of undulating arches in the air.
“For its nest it bores out a deep hole in soft-wood trees such as firs and poplars. Male and female work with lusty blows of the beak, taking turns at the hardest part of the task, the piercing of the live wood of the trunk, until the worm-eaten center is reached. Chips, wood-dust, and decayed fragments are dug out with the feet, and at last the hole is deep enough and slanting enough to exclude the light of day. The young ones leave the nest before they can fly, and they may be seen exercising near it, learning to climb, to run around the trunk of their tree, and to cling to it upside down. You will be amused to watch them if you ever have the good fortune to be present at the frolics of a young family of woodpeckers.
“The great spotted woodpecker is about as large as a thrush. It has a wide red stripe across the nape of the neck, the upper part of the body is prettily spotted with pure white and deep black, and the under part is white as far as the abdomen, which is red, as is also the rump. The female has no[180]red on the nape of the neck. The food of this bird is the same as the green woodpecker’s. It strikes the tree with quicker, smarter blows, and if disturbed in its work it remains motionless in the shelter of a large branch with its green eyes fixed on the object of its distrust. Its cry is a kind of hoarse, grindingtrer-rer-rer-rer.
“The variegated woodpecker much resembles the great spotted woodpecker in plumage, but is a little smaller. It is adorned with a red cap which covers the whole of the upper part and the back of the head, while the great spotted woodpecker has only a stripe of this color on the nape of the neck. Both these birds are found in the large wooded districts of France, and they live on the same diet,—insects, wood-boring larvæ, and ants. Also, because of their velvet costume of black and white and their scarlet cap, they are both to be ranked among the prettiest birds we have.
“Let us add to them the little spotted woodpecker. It is smaller than a sparrow, and its dress is that of the great spotted woodpecker. This bird is found almost exclusively in the fir forests of the East and of the Pyrenees.
“The wryneck is closely akin to the woodpeckers in the structure of its feet, whose four toes or talons are divided into two pairs, one pointing forward and the other backward, and in its very long and viscous tongue which it pushes into ant-hills or stretches out on the ground to receive the insects as they pass. It is a small bird, being no larger[181]than a lark. Its plumage is watered with black, brown, gray, and russet, somewhat like the woodcock’s, but with tints better defined and more beautiful in their combined effect. The wryneck is a great eater of caterpillars, and it is also passionately fond of ants, which it catches as does the woodpecker, with its sticky tongue laid on the ground across their path. Its name comes from the habit it has of twisting its neck and looking backward with a sort of slow and undulating movement like a snake’s.”
“Why does it imitate a snake like that?” Emile inquired.
“It is its way of expressing surprise and alarm; and perhaps it also hopes to frighten its foe with the motions. At any rate, it is sometimes successful. If a birdnest-hunter climbs up to its hole to steal its little ones, the wryneck emits, from the depths of its retreat, a sharp hissing and begins to make snake-like movements with its neck. The young birds, still featherless, imitate their mother to the best of their ability, and succeed so well that the hunter thinks he has thrust his hand into a nest of writhing and twisting flat-headed vipers. Thoroughly frightened, the boy clambers down, not without leaving some shreds of his breeches on the way.”
“Serves the rascal right, too,” declared Emile.
“The wryneck reaches us in April and leaves toward the end of summer. It haunts the outskirts of woods and visits gardens and orchards for caterpillars. It nests in a hole in a tree trunk and gladly avails itself of the woodpecker’s abandoned quarters[182]after furbishing them up a little to suit itself. The eggs, which are white and polished like the woodpecker’s, rest on a simple little bed of wood-dust that the bird dislodges from the walls of its hole with a few blows of its beak.
“Despite the structure of its feet, the wryneck does not climb tree trunks and rarely even perches on them, preferring to stay on the ground and hunt caterpillars or stretch out its tongue in the ants’ path, which has given it, in the South, the name of stretch-tongue.
“The nuthatch, on the contrary, though differing from the woodpecker in the formation of its claws, is a first-rate climber and spends its life running about on the trunks of trees, inspecting every crack and cranny for insects and pecking at the old bark. Three of its talons point forward, the fourth alone being turned in the opposite direction; but for firmness of support the last is worth two of the others, so thick and powerful is it, and the nail at the end so strong and hooked. The beak resembles the woodpecker’s, being straight, fluted lengthwise, and sharply pointed. It is an excellent tool for digging into wood and getting out the worms. The tongue cannot be projected like the woodpecker’s to catch insects with its glue, nor does the tail serve as a support.
“The nuthatch examines old trees with painstaking care, going up and down the trunk repeatedly, or around it in a spiral, and sometimes visiting a branch above or below or on one side. Every crack[183]is explored with the point of the beak, to the accompaniment of the bird’s resonant cry,tuee, tuee, tuee, repeated again and again in a penetrating tone. Very few insects can escape so careful a search. If grubs are lacking, the nuthatch makes a frugal meal of a hazelnut. First it fixes the nut firmly in the fork made by two branches, and then it hammers away at it, encouraging itself the while by uttering its cry, until the hard shell is pierced and the kernel exposed.”
“It must take the bird a long time to crack a hazelnut with its beak,” was the opinion of Jules.
“No, it is done very quickly, the beak is so hard and pointed. Very quickly, too, a caged nuthatch will break through the woodwork of its prison and make an opening large enough to escape through. Not even the woodpecker has a better carpenter’s chisel.
“The nuthatch is about as large as a sparrow. All the upper part of its plumage is of a bluish ash color, the throat and cheeks are white, and the breast and stomach red. A black stripe, starting from the corner of the beak, passes over the eye and down the side of the neck. This bird nests in a hole in a tree trunk and it knows how, if need be, to make the opening of the nest smaller with a little moistened clay. Its eggs, from five to seven in number, are laid on moss or wood-dust and are of a dingy white dotted with red. It gets its name of nuthatch (which means nuthacker) from its way of hacking the nuts it is so fond of.”[184]