Identifier: birdlifeguid00chap (find matches)
Title: Bird-life; a guide to the study of our common birds
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Chapman, Frank M. (Frank Michler), 1864-1945 Seton, Ernest Thompson, 1860-1946
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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for his discretion in judging distances andknowing just when to fly, he would long ago have disap-peared from the haunts of man. We might now be afew fish richer, but would they repay us for the loss ofthis genius of wooded shores ? WOODPECKERS AND WRYNECKS. (ORDER PICI.) Woodpeckers. (Family Picidje.) The three hundred and fifty known species of Wood-peckers are represented in all the wooded parts of theworld except the Australian region and Madagascar.Nearly one half this number are found in the NewWorld, and of these twenty-five occur in North America. Few birds seem better adapted to their mode of lifethan Woodpeckers, the structure of their bill, tongue,tail, and feet being admirably suited to their needs. The notes of Woodpeckers can not be termed musical,and their chief contribution to the springtime chorus is arolling tattoo which resembles the h-r-r-r-ring call of thetree frogs. The feathered drummer selects a resonantlimb and pounds out his song with a series of strokes de-
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Plate XL. Page 137. COWBIKD. Length, 7-90 inches. Mate, head and neck all around dark coffee-brown;rest of plumage glossy greenish black. Female, dirty brownish gray;throat whitish. ■HI WOODPECKERS. . 115 livered so quickly that his head becomes a series of mazyheads. Watch the Downy Woodpecker, our commonestspecies, while he is engaged in this surprising perf orm-Downy Woodpecker, ance How he seems to enjoy it! HisDryohates pubescem whole appearance is martial and defi-medianus. ant. It is his challenge to the Wood-pecker world. After each roll he looksproudly about him and perhaps utters his call-note, asharp peek, peek, which suggests the sound produced bya marble cutters chisel. More rarely this call is pro-longed into a connected series, when one can readilyimagine that the quarrier has dropped his tool. The Downy is a hardy bird and is with us throughoutthe year. In the winter he forms a partnership with theChickadee and Nuthatch, and if the good this trio doescould be express

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