Three-toed Woodpecker of Java
“Now,” said Jules, “I understand what Jacques was saying. The woodpecker doesn’t run around the tree to see whether or not it has bored through to the other side, but to gobble up the insects that are trying to get away. I thought the woodpecker must be very silly to think it could drill right through the trunk of a tree with one peck of its beak; but now that I know the real reason of what it does, I see that it’s a wonderfully clever bird.”
“I assure you once more that animals have more intelligence than they are given credit for. Let us [[175]]beware of seeing an evil meaning in habits and aptitudes that we do not understand. Is it not said of the buzzard that it is a stupid bird, just because it shows such patience in watching and waiting, perfectly motionless, for the field-mouse it suspects to be lurking under the ground? And here we have the woodpecker accused of being so foolish as to think it can pierce a tree trunk with one blow of its beak, merely because it runs around to capture the insects fleeing to the other side! Bear this in mind: there is in animals no foolishness except what we ascribe to them from our own point of view. Whenever we are able to discover the real motive, we always find their actions perfectly logical. And that is only what might have been expected, for an animal has no choice in its acts, but is made to perform them according to its mode of life as determined from the beginning by Divine Wisdom. Man alone is free: by a sublime privilege he is left to choose between good and evil, between sound reason and blind passion. He seeks and chooses, at his own risk and peril, the true or the false, the just or the unjust, the beautiful or the ugly. But animals, having no spiritual battles to fight as we have, are now what they have always been and always will be; they do to-day what they did yesterday and will do to-morrow; for centuries and centuries they go on doing the same thing without improvement or deterioration, and with an unfailing sense given them by God.
“Woodpeckers spend their lives running around [[176]]tree trunks from top to bottom in order to start the old bark that shelters insects, and exploring all fissures with their long, pointed tongue, which is pushed down into every hole where worms may possibly be hiding. These birds are placed in our forests as keepers. They inspect sickly trees in particular, trees honeycombed by vermin, and they examine carefully the diseased parts. Occasionally they may chance to attack a healthy part, especially in making their nests, and they may thus injure the tree by drilling into the live wood. But this damage is more than atoned for in the long run, and so I do not hesitate to bestow upon our woodpeckers the title of forest-preservers, a title earned by their assiduous warfare on insects injurious to wood. Seldom do they leave their timber-yard—the trunk and the main branches of the tree—and descend to the ground, except when they chance to find an ant-hill, the inmates of which they devour with delight. They place their nests at a considerable height from the ground, deep down in a round hole bored with the beak in the heart of some tree trunk. The bedding consists of moss and wool, and the eggs, four to six in number, are in every instance white, smooth, and as lustrous as ivory.” [[177]]
CHAPTER XXIII
MORE ABOUT WOODPECKERS
“The commonest of our woodpeckers is the green woodpecker, which is about as large as a turtle-dove. Its plumage has a richness rarely seen in that of any of our other birds. The top of the head and the nape of the neck are of a magnificent crimson; two mustaches of the same hue adorn the bird’s face; the back is green, the breast and stomach yellowish white, the rump yellow, and the large wing-feathers black with regular marks of white on the edge. The female has less brilliant coloring than the male and its mustaches are black instead of red.
“It is the green woodpecker that you heard in the grove this morning, giving its cry of teo, teo, teo. I will not go over what Jacques has already told you about its different cries. The green woodpecker is passionately fond of ants, and when it discovers an ant-hill it posts itself near by and stretches its long viscous tongue across the path the ants follow. You know these little creatures’ way of marching in long files, one or more, following the exact path taken by the leaders. The woodpecker’s viscous tongue is extended across this line of march. The ants from behind come up, hesitate a moment before the barricade, [[178]]and then venture upon the tongue, in order to follow their friends marching on ahead as if nothing had happened. Immediately we have one ant caught, then four, then ten, all struggling in the sticky mucilage covering the tongue. The woodpecker does not move, but remains quiet until its tongue is quite covered. Nor has it long to wait. Soon the living trap, laden with game, is withdrawn into the beak. Ah, that was a luscious mouthful! Without leaving the spot the ant-eater repeats this performance again and again, laying its tongue on the ground and then drawing it in black with ants, until its hunger is satisfied.”
“Animals know more than one would think, as you said a while ago,” Emile remarked. “That trick of the woodpecker’s shows it plainly enough. Instead of picking the ants up one by one, which would be very slow work with such small game, the woodpecker takes them dozens at a time. It lays its tongue across their path on the ground, draws it in again when it is all plastered over with ants, and the thing is done. And the mouthful is well worth the trouble. Who would have thought of making a trap of one’s tongue, a trap that catches game with glue?”