pleasure leads them into the depths of the woods and forests, where it delights to dwell. It feeds on insects and larva; and its hard tongue is terminated by a horny point, which particularly fits it for seizing its prey. There is also a very singular mechanism connected with the tongue of this bird, which enables it to shoot it out to an astonishing length, in seizing the insects on which it feeds. It climbs trees generally in a spiral direction, and has the power of running along the branches with its head downwards, like a fly on the ceiling.

The green woodpecker is the most common of the European species. It utters a piercing cry, resembling the words tiacacan, tiacacan; with which it makes the woods resound. It has also another cry, occasionally heard, which is like a noisy burst of laughter, repeated thirty or forty times in succession. It has likewise a plaintive note, which it uses on the approach of rain; whence it is sometimes called the rain-fowl. But the sounds for which the woodpeckers are generally the most remarked, is their loud tapping on the barks of trees, which they strike with their strong bills, in order to rouse the insects, and drive them from their retreats. In spring and summer, the green woodpecker is sometimes found on the ground, in search of ants, which he

esteems a great delicacy. He will watch for them in the neighbourhood of an ant-hill, resting his long tongue on the ground, to receive them in their passage to and from the nest; and when his tongue is covered, he retires to eat them. Sometimes he makes a violent attack on the anthill itself, and makes the little creatures and their eggs alike his alike his prey. At other times he is continually climbing trees, and striking them in the manner before described, with his bill. The noise may be heard to a considerable distance, and the strokes counted.

The woodpecker's nest is made in the hollow of a decayed tree. Tapping with his bill, he easily discovers the part where the trunk is hollow within; and he and his mate work alternately to open a way to the centre, by piercing the sound part of the wood with their bills. In doing this, they carefully throw out the chips. They often make a hole so deep in the tree, and penetrate by such a sloping passage, that the light of day can scarcely enter. Here they make a nest of moss and wood. The eggs are from four to six in number: they are quite white. During the time of hatching, the male and female rarely quit each other. They retire early in the evening to their hole, where they remain till daylight.

THE WOODPECKER.

Hail to thee, woodpecker, clothed in green!
How thy verdant mantle concealeth thee;
'Mid the waving foliage scarcely seen,

As thou climbest the boughs of the forest-tree.
The theme of the villager's song art thou,
The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-bough.

Throughout all the land that song has been heard,
Yet thousands there are, who but for the song
Would never have known the name of the bird,
Or thought of its habits the woods among.
The theme of the villager's song is he,

The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.

The shepherd that rests in the beechen shade,
While his flocks in the level pastures graze:
The woodman at work in the forest-glade,
Or the sportsman threading the woody maze :
All these the green bird of the ballad may see,
The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.

Though I've marked the note of many a bird,
Wandering alone in the field or the wood,
The woodpecker's tapping but once have I heard,
As under the green boughs I silently stood;
For a shy and a timid bird is he,

The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.

ORDER SCANSORES.

The Cuckoo.

Cuculus Canorus.

THE Cuckoo is supposed to pass the winter in Africa, and usually comes to us in the month of April, when we hear its monotonous but pleasant cry of cuckoo, which seems to proclaim to us that winter is gone, and the time of flowers is coming. Arrived in England, it generally betakes itself to the woods, and appears especially to delight in those which are situated on hills and mountains ; from whence we may hear its simple, oft-repeated song, through the day, and to a late hour of the night. It feeds on insects, caterpillars, &c. and is said also to eat the eggs of small birds.

The most curious circumstance in the history of this bird is, that it never builds a nest itself, but lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. The nests she chooses for this purpose are usually those of birds smaller than herself; and she takes the precaution to deposit only one in a nest, though she lays from four to six in a season;

evidently aware that there will not be room for more than one of her great children to be cradled in so confined an abode. It has been often asked in what manner the female cuckoo introduces her eggs into nests which are either so small in their dimensions, or so contracted in their entrance, that she cannot possibly get into them. It now seems ascertained that the mode she adopts is to carry an egg in her bill, and drop it into the nest she has chosen. The young cuckoo, soon after it is hatched, usually turns out of the nest the eggs or young birds of its foster-mother. But though the cuckoo thus puts out her children to be nursed, she by no means deserts them, or ceases to feel a parental interest in her progeny. She has been seen to hover round the tree where the young bird is lodged, singing near it, and evidently answering its cries with her song; as if willing to visit and pay it kind attentions, though she cannot take the trouble of nursing. We must not blame the poor cuckoo for this peculiarity, but should rather regard the circumstance as a singular instance of the provision made by the great Author of Nature for every living creature.

The cuckoo does not seem fitted, like other birds, to undertake the charge of hatching and rearing her young; but she is directed, by the

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