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Theophrastus believed and experienced that there was an herb at whose single touch an iron wedge, though never so far driven into a huge log of the hardest wood that is, would presently come out; and it is this same herb your hickways, alias woodpeckers, use, when with some mighty axe anyone stops up the hole of their nests, which they industriously dig and make in the trunk of some sturdy tree.
Subtle odors of mint and southern-wood, stragglers from the garden, bruised by their limbs, replaced the fumes of their smoked-out pipes, and the hammers of the woodpeckers were busy in the grove as they lay lazily nibbling the fragrant leaves like peaceful ruminants. Then came the sound of approaching wheels along the invisible highway beyond the buckeyes, and then a halt and silence.
All day long, the little beaks of the birds are busy. The dear little rose-breasted gross-beak carefully examines the potato plants, and picks off the beetles, the martins destroy weevil, the quail and grouse family eats the chinchbug, the woodpeckers dig the worms from the trees, and many other birds eat the flies and gnats and mosquitoes that torment us so.
Under the shade of the pines the white stars of the hepatica glistened and the pale anemones were coming into bloom. Partridge-berries glowed red under their glossy leaves, and clumps of violets sweetened the air. Squirrels chattered, woodpeckers tapped, thrushes sang; but Stephen was blind and deaf to all the sweet harbingers of spring.
A plain brown tail, and a light-buff band on the wings. Under parts white, without any marks. Bill very sharp and slender, curved like a surgeon's needle. A Summer Citizen of northern North America. A Tree Trapper. "I thought that more tree-trunk birds, such as Woodpeckers, would come next," said Rap. "We are still taking the Birds that Sing," said the Doctor.
Woodpeckers are numerous, and amusing to watch. Wood-pigeons and turtle-doves abound, the former in hundreds nesting here. Rooks, of course, and jackdaws, daws love hollow trees, jays, and some magpies. The magpie is one of the birds which have partly disappeared from the fields of England. There are broad lands where not one is to be seen.
But they are fruit-eating birds, and not insectivorous; it is this that constitutes the chief difference between them and the woodpeckers. Barbets are found throughout the tropical world. A number of species occur in India. The finest of all the barbets are the Megalæmas. The great Himalayan barbet attains a length of 13 inches. There is no lack of colour in its plumage.
After this, all was quiet and the Green Woodpecker eventually descended and entered the hole. The Great Spotted Woodpecker, however, returned again, but, after fluttering around the hole, disappeared, leaving the Green Woodpeckers in possession.
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