The Woodpeckers

Part 1

Produced by Bryan Ness, Steve Read and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

THE WOODPECKERS

FANNIE HARDY ECKSTORM

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1901

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY FANNIE HARDY ECKSTORM

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

To MY FATHER MR. MANLY HARDY A Lifelong Naturalist

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

FOREWORD: THE RIDDLERS 1

I. HOW TO KNOW A WOODPECKER 4

II. HOW THE WOODPECKER CATCHES A GRUB 9

III. HOW THE WOODPECKER COURTS HIS MATE 15

IV. HOW THE WOODPECKER MAKES A HOUSE 20

V. HOW A FLICKER FEEDS HER YOUNG 24

VI. FRIEND DOWNY 28

VII. PERSONA NON GRATA. (YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER) 33

VIII. EL CARPINTERO. (CALIFORNIAN WOODPECKER) 46

IX. A RED-HEADED COUSIN. (RED-HEADED WOODPECKER) 55

X. A STUDY OF ACQUIRED HABITS 60

XI. THE WOODPECKER'S TOOLS: HIS BILL 68

XII. THE WOODPECKER'S TOOLS: HIS FOOT 77

XIII. THE WOODPECKER'S TOOLS: HIS TAIL 86

XIV. THE WOODPECKER'S TOOLS: HIS TONGUE 99

XV. HOW EACH WOODPECKER IS FITTED FOR HIS OWN KIND OF LIFE 104

XVI. THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 110

APPENDIX 113

Part 2

A. KEY TO THE WOODPECKERS OF NORTH AMERICA 114

B. DESCRIPTIONS OF THE WOODPECKERS OF NORTH AMERICA 117

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Flicker (colored) Frontispiece

Boring Larva 10

Indian Spear 12

Solomon Islander's Spear 13

Downy Woodpecker (colored) facing 28

Bark showing Work of Sapsucker 34

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (colored) facing 34

Trunk of Tree showing Work of Californian Woodpecker 47

Californian Woodpecker (colored) facing 48

Red-headed Woodpecker (colored) facing 56

Head of the Lewis's Woodpecker 59

Head of Ivory-billed Woodpecker 70

Foot of Woodpecker 77

Diagram of Right Foot 79

Foot of Three-toed Woodpecker 80

Tail of Hairy Woodpecker 86

Tails of Brown Creeper and Chimney Swift 87

Middle Tail Feathers of Flicker, Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and Hairy Woodpecker 89

Diagram of Curvature of Tails of Woodpeckers 90

Patterns of Tails 91

Under Side of Middle Tail Feather of Ivory-billed Woodpecker 97

Tongue of Hairy Woodpecker 99

Tongue-bones of Flicker 100

Skull of Woodpecker, showing Bones of Tongue 101

Part 3

Hyoids of Sapsucker and Golden-fronted Woodpecker 102

Diagram of Head of a Flicker 113

The colored illustrations are by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. The text cuts are from drawings by John L. Ridgway.

THE WOODPECKERS

FOREWORD: THE RIDDLERS

Long ago in Greece, the legend runs, a terrible monster called the Sphinx used to waylay travelers to ask them riddles: whoever could not answer these she killed, but the man who did answer them killed her and made an end of her riddling.

To-day there is no Sphinx to fear, yet the world is full of unguessed riddles. No thoughtful man can go far afield but some bird or flower or stone bars his way with a question demanding an answer; and though many men have been diligently spelling out the answers for many years, and we for the most part must study the answers they have proved, and must reply in their words, yet those shrewd old riddlers, the birds and flowers and bees, are always ready for a new victim, putting their heads together over some new enigma to bar the road to knowledge till that, too, shall be answered; so that other men's learning does not always suffice. So much of a man's pleasure in life, so much of his power, depends on his ability to silence these persistent questioners, that this little book was written with the hope of making clearer the kind of questions Dame Nature asks, and the way to get correct answers.

This is purposely a little book, dealing only with a single group of birds, treating particularly only some of the commoner species of that group, taking up only a few of the problems that present themselves to the naturalist for solution, and aiming rather to make the reader acquainted with the birds than learned about them.

The woodpeckers were selected in preference to any other family because they are patient under observation, easily identified, resident in all parts of the country both in summer and in winter, and because more than any other birds they leave behind them records of their work which may be studied after the birds have flown. The book provides ample means for identifying every species and subspecies of woodpecker known in North America, though only five of the commonest and most interesting species have been selected for special study. At least three of these five should be found in almost every part of the country. The Californian woodpecker is never seen in the East, nor the red-headed in the far West, but the downy and the hairy are resident nearly everywhere, and some species of the flickers and sapsuckers, if not always the ones chosen for special notice, are visitors in most localities.

Look for the woodpeckers in orchards and along the edges of thickets, among tangles of wild grapes and in patches of low, wild berries, upon which they often feed, among dead trees and in the track of forest fires. Wherever there are boring larvæ, beetles, ants, grasshoppers, the fruit of poison-ivy, dogwood, june-berry, wild cherry or wild grapes, woodpeckers may be confidently looked for if there are any in the neighborhood. Be patient, persistent, wide-awake, sure that you see what you think you see, careful to remember what you have seen, studious to compare your observations, and keen to hear the questions propounded you. If you do this seven years and a day, you will earn the name of Naturalist; and if you travel the road of the naturalist with curious patience, you may some day become as famous a riddle-reader as was that Oedipus, the king of Thebes, who slew the Sphinx.

HOW TO KNOW A WOODPECKER

The woodpecker is the easiest of all birds to recognize. Even if entirely new to you, you may readily decide whether a bird is a woodpecker or not.

The woodpecker is always striking and is often gay in color. He is usually noisy, and his note is clear and characteristic. His shape and habits are peculiar, so that whenever you see a bird clinging to the side of a tree "as if he had been thrown at it and stuck," you may safely call him a woodpecker. Not that all birds which cling to the bark of trees are woodpeckers,--for the chickadees, the crested titmice, the nuthatches, the brown creepers, and a few others like the kinglets and some wrens and wood-warblers more or less habitually climb up and down the tree-trunks; but these do it with a pretty grace wholly unlike the woodpecker's awkward, cling-fast way of holding on. As the largest of these is smaller than the smallest woodpecker, and as none of them (excepting only the tiny kinglets) ever shows the patch of yellow or scarlet which always marks the head of the male woodpecker, and which sometimes adorns his mate, there is no danger of making mistakes.

The nuthatches are the only birds likely to be confused with woodpeckers, and these have the peculiar habit of traveling down a tree-trunk with their heads pointing to the ground. A woodpecker never does this; he may move down the trunk of the tree he is working on, but he will do it by hopping backward. A still surer sign of the woodpecker is the way he sits upon his tail, using it to brace him. No other birds except the chimney swift and the little brown creeper ever do this. A sure mark, also, is his feet, which have two toes turned forward and two turned backward. We find this arrangement in no other North American birds except the cuckoos and our one native parroquet. However, there is one small group of woodpeckers which have but three toes, and these are the only North American land-birds that do not have four well-developed toes.

In coloration the woodpeckers show a strong family likeness. Except in some young birds, the color is always brilliant and often is gaudy. Usually it shows much clear black and white, with dashes of scarlet or yellow about the head. Sometimes the colors are "solid," as in the red-headed woodpecker; sometimes they lie in close bars, as in the red-bellied species; sometimes in spots and stripes, as in the downy and hairy; but there is always a contrast, never any blending of hues. The red or yellow is laid on in well-defined patches--square, oblong, or crescentic--upon the crown, the nape, the jaws, or the throat; or else in stripes or streaks down the sides of the head and neck, as in the logcock, or pileated woodpecker.

There is no rule about the color markings of the sexes, as in some families of birds. Usually the female lacks all the bright markings of the male; sometimes, as in the logcock, she has them but in more restricted areas; sometimes, as in the flickers, she has all but one of the male's color patches; and in a few species, as the red-headed and Lewis's woodpeckers, the two sexes are precisely alike in color. In the black-breasted woodpecker, sometimes called Williamson's sapsucker, the male and female are so totally different that they were long described and named as different birds. It sometimes happens that a young female will show the color marks of the male, but will retain them only the first year.

Continue reading The Woodpeckers free in the Wunder reader →