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Downy Woodpecker (colored) facing 28 Bark showing Work of Sapsucker 34 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (colored) facing 34 Trunk of Tree showing Work of Californian Woodpecker 47 Californian Woodpecker (colored) facing 48 Red-headed Woodpecker (colored) facing 56 Head of the Lewis’s Woodpecker 59 Head of Ivory-billed Woodpecker 70 Foot of Woodpecker 77 Diagram of Right Foot 79 Foot of Three-toed Woodpecker 80 Tail of Hairy Woodpecker 86 Tails of Brown Creeper and Chimney Swift 87 Middle Tail Feathers of Flicker, Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and Hairy Woodpecker 89 Diagram of Curvature of Tails of Woodpeckers 90 Patterns of Tails 91 Under Side of Middle Tail Feather of Ivory-billed Woodpecker 97 Tongue of Hairy Woodpecker 99 Tongue-bones of Flicker 100 Skull of Woodpecker, showing Bones of Tongue 101 Hyoids of Sapsucker and Golden-fronted Woodpecker 102 Diagram of Head of a Flicker 113

The colored illustrations are by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. The text cuts are from drawings by John L. Ridgway.

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THE WOODPECKERS

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FOREWORD: THE RIDDLERS

Long ago in Greece, the legend runs, a terrible monster called the Sphinx used to waylay travelers to ask them riddles: whoever could not answer these she killed, but the man who did answer them killed her and made an end of her riddling.

To-day there is no Sphinx to fear, yet the world is full of unguessed riddles. No thoughtful man can go far afield but some bird or flower or stone bars his way with a question demanding an answer; and though many men have been diligently spelling out the answers for many years, and we for the most part must study the answers they have proved, and must reply in their words, yet those shrewd old riddlers, the birds and flowers and bees, are always ready for a new victim, putting their heads together over some new enigma to bar the road to knowledge till that, too, shall be answered; so that other men’s learning does not always suffice. So much of a man’s pleasure in life, so much of his power, depends on his ability to silence these persistent questioners, that this little book was written with the hope of making clearer the kind of questions Dame Nature asks, and the way to get correct answers.

This is purposely a little book, dealing only with a single group of birds, treating particularly only some of the commoner species of that group, taking up only a few of the problems that present themselves to the naturalist for solution, and aiming rather to make the reader acquainted with the birds than learned about them.

The woodpeckers were selected in preference to any other family because they are patient under observation, easily identified, resident in all parts of the country both in summer and in winter, and because more than any other birds they leave behind them records of their work which may be studied after the birds have flown. The book provides ample means for identifying every species and subspecies of woodpecker known in North America, though only five of the commonest and most interesting species have been selected for special study. At least three of these five should be found in almost every part of the country. The Californian woodpecker is never seen in the East, nor the