They go in horizontally to the centre
and then turn downward, enlarging the tunnel as they go, till when
finished it is the shape of a long, deep pear.
Another trait our woodpeckers have that endears them to me, and that
has never been pointedly noticed by our ornithologists, is their habit
of drumming in the spring. They are songless birds, and yet all are
musicians; they make the dry limbs eloquent of the coming change. Did
you think that loud, sonorous hammering which proceeded from the
orchard or from the near woods on that still March or April morning
was only some bird getting its breakfast? It is downy, but he is not
rapping at the door of a grub; he is rapping at the door of spring,
and the dry limb thrills beneath the ardor of his blows. Or, later in
the season, in the dense forest or by some remote mountain lake, does
that measured rhythmic beat that breaks upon the silence, first three
strokes following each other rapidly, succeeded by two louder ones with
longer intervals between them, and that has an effect upon the alert
ear as if the solitude itself had at last found a voice--does that
suggest anything less than a deliberate musical performance? In fact,
our woodpeckers are just as characteristically drummers as is the
ruffed grouse, and they have their particular limbs and stubs to which
they resort for that purpose.
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