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All wild creatures are afraid of fire, therefore the camp-fire is a barrier they will not pass, and a blazing firebrand will drive any of them away. =Birds= Among the feathered tribes of the woods you will find the owl, the woodcock, and the grouse. Of the smaller birds, the nuthatch, the wood and hermit thrush, whippoorwill, woodpeckers, wood-pewee, and others.
It was not just the young trees at the edge of the road that made music now, but the whole forest. There were organs and drums and trumpets; there were little thrush flutes and bullfinch pipes; there were gurgling brooks and singing water-sprites, tinkling bluebells and thrumming woodpeckers. Never had he heard anything so beautiful, nor listened to music in just this way.
These the Sapsucker also eats, sweeping them up in the sap with his tongue, which is not barbed like that of other Woodpeckers, but has a little brush on the end of it, shaped something like those we use for cleaning lamp chimneys. In this way he can easily lick up great quantities of both sap and insects.
Not a leaf or bough was in motion; nor was a sound heard, except when now and then our ears caught the soughing of the wind among the lofty heads of the pine-trees, the tapping of the woodpeckers on the decaying trunks, or the whistling cry of the little chitmonk as it ran from bough to bough.
Great shiny blue, crestless jays flitted over the scrub; shy black and white and chestnut chewinks flirted into sight and out again among the heaps of dead brush; red-bellied woodpeckers, sticking to the tree trunks, turned their heads calmly; gray lizards, big, ugly red-headed lizards, swift slender lizards with blue tails raced across the dry leaves or up tree trunks, making even more fuss and clatter than the noisy cinnamon-tinted thrashers in the underbrush.
The notes of the golden-wing much more varied and musical than those of other woodpeckers are probably the results of his new free life, and the modified tongue and bill. In the woods one seldom hears from him anything but the rattling rat-a-tat-tat, as he hammers away on a dry old pine stub.
Other exceptions are the pigeons, hawks, and water-fowls. But to return. Having a good chance to note the color and markings of the woodpeckers as they passed in and out at the opening of the nest, I saw that Audubon had made a mistake in figuring or describing the female of this species with the red spot upon the head.
With altered life-habits the numerous divergent forms originated; some, like Xiphorynchus, retaining a probing beak in a wonderfully modified form, attenuated in an extreme degree, and bent like a sickle; others diverging more in the direction of nuthatches and woodpeckers.
It was a beautiful July day, and perhaps the boys were a little lazy. At any rate, they all became so quiet the little woodpeckers on the trees went on with their work pecking at the tree bark as if no human being was in sight. Suddenly there was a big splash! "August!" yelled all the boys at once, for indeed August was gone from the springboard. "Quick!" called Harry to his companions.
Males and females, comparative numbers of; comparative mortality of, while young. Malherbe, on the woodpeckers. Mallotus Peronii. Mallotus villosus. Malthus, T., on the rate of increase of population. Maluridae, nidification of the. Malurus, young of. Mammae, rudimentary, in male mammals; supernumerary, in women; of male human subject. Mammalia, Prof. Owen's classification of; genealogy of the.