the United States, where it is celebrated for its liveliness and activity. No sooner has spring clothed the woods with verdure, than the voice of this bird is heard on every side, resembling a "prolonged and jovial laugh at a distance," or with the loud hammering it makes in chipping out a hole for the purpose of incubation. In this laborious operation the male and female alternately relieve and encourage each other by mutual caresses, and daily continue the work until they have excavated a capacious chamber. This done, they pass the time in frolicking about the branches. They climb about and around the tree with apparent delight, rattle with their bill against the tops of the dead branches, chase all their cousins the red-heads, defy the purple grakles to enter their nest, feed plentifully on ants, beetles, and larvæ, cackling at intervals, and ere two weeks have elapsed the female lays four or six eggs of a transparent whiteness."

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This interesting bird is often seen hopping on the ground busily picking up ants and other insects, or intent in examining the dead roots of trees or prostrate logs, every now and then pegging away in order to dislodge and capture some victim fated to be either devoured on the spot, or carried to its young. To such diet it adds fruits of various kinds; as, for example, grapes, apples, and berries, wild or cultivated, as well as young and succulent corn. Its flight is strong and straight, or at least has less of an undulating character than is the case with Woodpeckers in general; it is maintained by numerous flappings of the wings, with short intervals of sailing. Audubon states it is a bird of partially migratory habits, retiring from the northern districts southwards in winter. He observes, however, that "many remain in the middle districts during the severest winters." These migrations are performed under night, as is known by the note of the birds, and the whistling of their wings, which are heard from the ground, though by no means so distinctly as when they fly from a tree or from the earth when suddenly alarmed."

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The plumage of the present species is very beautiful : the top of the head is of a purplish gray, a crescent-shaped

bar of rich scarlet bounding the back part; the upper parts are light brown, inclining to chestnut, thickly barred with black; quills black, their shafts being of a deep golden yellow, as are the shafts of all the larger feathers also; tail black; rump white; sides of the cheeks and throat light cinnamon colour, with a black stripe extending for about an inch from the base of the beak; under surface reddish white, with a black gorget on the chest, and round black spots thickly dispersed over every part below; under surface of the wings and tail rich yellow, The female wants the black stripe on the cheeks. Length twelve inches and a half.

Here may be closed this sketch of the Woodpeckers, an active animated race; very different indeed from the stupid, forlorn, dejected, unprovided-for beings they have been by some represented. Wilson well observes of the eloquent promulgation of such libels on nature," that Buffon had too often a favourite theory to prop up that led him insensibly astray; and so, forsooth, the whole family of Woodpeckers must look sad, sour, and be miserable to satisfy the caprice of a whimsical philosopher, who takes it into his head that they are and ought to be so." Theories have indeed too often led men astray from truth, and he who looks at nature through such a distorted medium will see little of the power, or the wisdom, or the mercy of God displayed in his works; he will colour all things with the jaundiced hue of a distempered fancy, and miss the harmony, order, and beauty of the whole. But the true philosopher sees God in all his works, and that order, that harmony, and that dependance which testify of their Creator and Preserver. And, instructed by the Holy Scriptures, through these visible things which appeal so forcibly to his senses, he is led to the contemplation of things that are invisible, of a new heaven and a new earth, of the eternal God not only as a Creator, but as a Redeemer and a Judge. The contemplation of the animal kingdom naturally conduces in a sensible mind to reflections on the origin and ultimate destiny of man at its head, a subject more connected with natural history

than many modern naturalists will allow. Let such reflexions be followed up with candid inquiry, and an earnest desire for truth, and we fear not the result. Lest, however, some should deem us wandering from our path, we leave this train of thought to be pursued by our readers.

The last of the families of Picide is a genus which, with many of the habits of woodpeckers, on the other hand possesses characters decidedly separating it from them: it is termed Yunx, and includes but two species; one peculiar to Africa, and distinguished by its rufous breast; the other, one of our summer birds of passage. The generic characters consist in the beak being straight, pointed, and round, and the nostrils bare; the tongue is worm-shaped, and pointed, and, as in the woodpeckers, capable of being protruded to an amazing distance; it is covered with viscid saliva, but not armed at the tip with retroverted prickles. The tail is composed of feathers destitute of stiff shafts; it therefore is not an instrument for assistance in climbing, nor in fact do the birds of this genus exhibit climbing habits to any thing like the same extent as the woodpeckers, but flit from point to point, and cling with facility to any rough projection.

Our British example is that elegant bird the WRYNECK, (Yunx Torquilla.) Though little known in the northern parts of our island, the Wryneck is common in the southern and eastern counties, arriving early in April, when it gives notice of its presence by its loud cry of peep, peep, peep, repeated for a minute or two together, and resumed in a short time with the same monotony. Groves, gardens, orchards, and small woods of old trees are its favourite resort; such situations affording it food in abundance, and every facility for the hatching and rearing of its young. Ants and their eggs are its favourite diet, and in quest of these it not only traverses the rugged surface of decaying trees, insinuating its tongue into the crevices, but descends to the ground, where it both hops and walks; and it is very curious to see, when it has discovered an ant's nest,

with what dexterity and rapidity it takes its food, picking up the insects one by one by darting at them its long slender tongue, and withdrawing it so instantaneously that the action is almost imperceptible. The tongue seems also to be used as a feeler, or perhaps an organ of

taste, for we have seen the Wryneck in captivity touch with it any substance presented for food, such as boiled potatoes or meat, keeping it at the same time in a state of quivering vibration. Such substances were of course unnatural diet.

The Wryneck incubates in the holes of trees produced by decay; for it does not, like the woodpecker, excavate its own cell, the strength of the beak being inadequate to such a purpose. Without making any nest, the eggs are deposited on the wood; their number is seven or nine, and their colour a pure transparent white. The young, if molested, hiss like snakes; as do the old birds also if wounded or trapped, at the same time also erecting their crest, and defending themselves with great spirit. From this circumstance has arisen the name of Snake Bird, by which it is known in some places. That of Wryneck it has acquired from its singular habit of twisting and writh

ing its neck with odd contortions when excited or alarmed. Cuckoo's Mate is another name, from the circumstance of its appearance eight or ten days before that bird.

The Wryneck leaves our island early in autumn, retiring to the southern parts of the continent. It is very extensively spread, specimens having been received from India and Africa.

Though its colours are not gaudy, they are not to be exceeded for the beauty and taste with which they are disposed: the upper parts are brown and gray, exquisitely dotted and chequered with spots, dashes, and zigzag bars and lines of black and rufous, to which the utmost efforts of the artist fail to do justice; the under parts yellowish white, with arrow-shaped spots and bars of black. Length seven inches.

We have described the Woodpeckers as climbers par excellence, as birds passing their lives principally, if not entirely, among the trees, on and under the bark of which the greatest portion of their food was to be obtained. Yet of these woodpeckers we found that some groups deviated from the ordinary standard, and were as much terrestrial as arboreal in their habits. So shall we find it in the next family, to which we invite attention, a family of true climbers, though in a manner totally different from that of the woodpeckers, inasmuch as they differ in food and structure of body. We allude to the

FAMILY PSITTACIDÆ, or PARROTS.-This extensive group of birds is divided into numerous genera, possessing certain well defined characters in common, but distinguished from each other by a variety of minor shades of difference; these would lead us into details of value only to the professed zoologist, and convey but little instruction to the general reader. We may observe, then, that the family of Psittacidæ can never be confounded with any other; it is distinguished by strong and decided features. The beak, for example, is hooked, stout, thick, and solid, with a membrane at the base of the upper mandible. The lower mandible is swollen, recurved, with its

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