Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/221

208 the point of its beak into a crack of the limb of a large tree, and making a quick tremulous motion with its head, occasions a sound as if the tree were splitting, which alarms the insects, and induces them to quit their recesses: this it repeats every minute or two for half an hour, and will then fly to another tree, generally fixing itself near the top for the same purpose. The noise may be distinctly heard for half a mile. This bird will also keep its head in very quick motion while moving about the tree for food, jarring the bark, and shaking it, at the time it is seeking for insects.

Like the rest of this Family, the Spotted Woodpecker inhabits holes which it has chiselled out of the solid timber of trees; and in these warm, and weather-tight chambers, the females perform the business of incubation. Colonel Montagu relates the following instance of the pertinacity with which the bird remains in her domicile while sitting:—"It was with difficulty the bird was made to quit her eggs; for, notwithstanding a chisel and mallet were used to enlarge the hole, she did not attempt to fly out till the hand was introduced, when she quitted the tree at another opening. The eggs were five in number, perfectly white and glossy."

"So faintly," observes Mr. Swainson, " is the scansorial structure indicated in these birds, that but for their natural habits, joined to the position