And Gisborne gives us a true picture of this restless and curious bird:—
"With shrill and oft-repeated cry,
Her angular course, alternate rise and fall,
The Woodpecker prolongs; then to the trunk
Close clinging, with unwearied beak assails
The hollow bark; through every call the strokes
Roll the dire echoes, that from wintry sleep
Awake her insect prey; the alarmed tribes
Start from each chink that bores the mouldering stem;
Their scattered flight with lengthened tongue the foe