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Updated: June 10, 2025
I have just told you that this bill pierces the bark of trees; but it only plays the part of gamekeepers on grand sporting occasions, who beat the bushes to make the game rise. The woodpecker's bill routs up the insects by destroying their shelter; but the real sportsman is the tongue. Good-bye to any notion of a cosy little chat in such a porter's lodge as that!
He is peeping into an old Woodpecker's hole and acting as if he had serious thoughts of going to housekeeping there, and did not intend waiting to move in until May-day either.
Many facts appear as if expressly designed in view of one another. Thus the woodpecker's bill, tongue, feet, tail, etc., fit him wondrously for a world of trees with grubs hid in their bark to feed upon. The parts of our eye fit the laws of light to perfection, leading its rays to a sharp picture on our retina.
The woodpeckers only learned how Miss Mary was an orphan; how she left her uncle's house, to come to California, for the sake of health and independence; how Sandy was an orphan, too; how he came to California for excitement; how he had lived a wild life, and how he was trying to reform; and other details, which, from a woodpecker's viewpoint, undoubtedly must have seemed stupid, and a waste of time.
It was as though all had been made ready for him the birds whistling and singing in the trees, the whisk of the squirrels leaping from bough to bough, the peremptory sound of the woodpecker's beak against the bole of a tree, the rustle of the leaves as a wood-hen ran past a waiting, virgin world. Its beauty and its wonderful dignity had no appeal to Buckmaster.
He is like a small woodpecker who has broken loose from the woodpecker's somewhat narrow laws of progression, preferring to be a law unto himself.
These Rails fly well enough when they once get started, and go a long way without stopping. But they are lazy about it in their summer homes, where they only flap up and then dodge down again to hide; so they are easy shooting too easy to be any sport. It's what I call killing, not hunting." "What a strange note they have," said Rap. "Something like a Woodpecker's call."
"You see," said the latter, as, with great difficulty, he restrained himself for half a moment, "this is my busy day." Again he roared and shook in a fit of ungovernable mirth. In the midst of it Mrs. Lukins arrived. "Don't pay no 'tention to him," she said. "The 'Colonel' is wearin' himself out restin'. He's kep' his head bobbin' all day like a woodpecker's.
"Jay! jay!" screamed Jasper in a rasping voice, like a saw biting into a log. "Ker-r-ruck! ker-r-ruck!" sounded Reddy's rolling call. And they began to scold Jimmy Rabbit, until he put his paws over his ears and ran away. If it hadn't been for Reddy Woodpecker's strong bill they might have stayed in the cedar swamp all winter. But he set to work and soon chopped himself free.
The pages seemed to fade and the eyes refused to see. "O Man, Man, why don't you come home!" she cried at last. She rose, walked to the door, looked and listened only the distant rattle of a woodpecker's beak on a dead tree in the woods. The snow began to fall in little fitful dabs. It was two miles to the nearest cabin, and her soul rose in fierce rebellion at her loneliness.
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