The winners in life's race

by Arabella B. Buckley

And, lastly, we come to the beautiful green fruit-eating pigeons of India and the East—the feeders on nutmegs and palm-fruits and juicy berries of all kinds. These are true tree birds, difficult even to find, so like are they to the colour of the leaves; yet they still build the loose untidy nests of their kind.

Nor need we wonder at this, for fine nest building requires both strength and delicacy in the bill and feet; and the next group of birds escapes it altogether by finding or making holes in trees and banks, and lining them with moss or leaves. This group is the Climbers, which come, as it were, between the ground birds and birds of active flight, for they clamber swiftly up the trunks and over the branches of trees in search of fruits and insects, seldom going down to the ground, but flitting from tree to tree to find fresh hunting grounds.

Fig. 43.

The great green Woodpecker.[103]

What is that green object, about as large as a small squirrel, which we see mounting the trunk of one of the elm trees, as we lie resting on the moss in some quiet wood? There it goes, dodging now to this side, now to that, with its head well lifted and its stiff tail bent against the trunk. It is the green woodpecker at his work. His long large feet, with toes divided in pairs, two in front and two behind, take firm hold of the tree with their sharp claws; his breast, which is flatter than that of most birds, lies close against the bark, as he mounts by a number of rapid jumps, which are made by pressing his strangely stiff horny tail against the trunk, while he hops forward with both feet, making a slight rustling noise, and moving so fast that it is difficult to see how he does it.

Now he pauses; it is to try a suspicious place in the bark, and tapping it with his beak he finds that it gives a hollow sound. This tells him at once that it is rotten, and there is an insect within; and pecking, a hole with rapid blows of his chisel-like bill, he inserts his narrow bill, and darts a long gluey tongue, with barbed tip, into the dark passage, bringing out the intruder, which is swallowed in a moment. A strange tongue this is of the woodpecker, for it has two long bony branches at its roots, and each one is like a bow bent under and round the back of the bird’s head, and as these bows are tightened or slackened by the slender muscles the tongue is drawn in, or thrust out to an extraordinary length. Moreover, it has at its tip a horny covering beset with tiny barbs, and every time it goes back to the mouth these are bathed in gluey slime to catch the next insect it may meet. Nor is the woodpecker obliged always to drill for his food. The tiny ants, as they wander up and down the trees, the beetles and bees settling on the branches—all may fear this gluey weapon, for all alike disappear within the long thin beak.

And now, perhaps, our friend has flown to another tree, and is some way up it. Where is he gone? Climb up and look, and you will find a small round hole, small outside but not inside, for the woodpecker has hollowed out the soft rotten wood, and within, if it be early summer, the mother is still sitting upon five or seven pure white eggs, out of which the naked little ones will soon creep. He is a clever fellow the woodpecker, but he is by no means the chief or most conspicuous of the climbers, for in this group we have some of the most gaudy and remarkable of birds. The brilliantly-coloured Barbets, the gaudy-headed Toucans, with their clumsy bills and long barbed tongues, and the gorgeously-tinted Parrots and Parroquets, with their soft fleshy tongues so well adapted for speech, are all climbers, with toes divided two and two, and they wander about the trees of South America and the East, feeding on fruits and seeds.

Where in any other part of the animal kingdom can we find so many brilliant colours crowded together as in the plumage of birds, and especially in birds of tropical countries? The large land animals cannot afford to wear such bright coats lest they should attract their enemies, nor can even birds often put on gay plumage in our northern climates, where the trees are bare for half the year. But in warm sunny latitudes, where the trees are always green and the foliage thick and heavy, and where brilliant fruits and flowers often peep out among the leaves, the gaily-coloured birds can wander in comparative safety, and even the gaudy parrots are not easily detected as they clamber from bough to bough, using not their tail like the woodpecker, but their beak, as a third foot to hold on by as they climb.

None of these birds build nests; indeed, they could hardly do so with their clumsy beaks and thick heavy feet; they either, like the ground parrots, put together a few leaves in hollows of the earth or in ants’ nests; or, like the fruit-eating parrots and toucans, they lay their eggs in tree-holes, where the bright-coloured mother is safely hidden till she is set at liberty again. Even the cuckoos which, though they are climbers, have taken much more to the wing than their associates, sometimes avoid the trouble of nest building by laying their eggs in the nests of other birds, as our own spring visitor always does. Some of them, however, in America and elsewhere, have contracted better habits, and build very respectable nests of their own.