You may generally know a woodpecker the moment you see him on a tree. He will—if he follows woodpecker fashions—be clinging to the trunk, or a big branch, propped up by his stiff tail, and not perched crosswise like most other birds.

There are a good many of this family in the world. We have twenty-four species in North America. They differ from other birds in two or three ways. First their toes are always in pairs, two turned forward and two turned backward, except in one genus, which has but three toes. So they can hold on better than anybody else.

Then again the tails of woodpeckers are not like most birds' tails. They are strong and stiff, so that they can be used as props to hold the bird in the queer position he likes so well.

Oddest of all are the woodpecker tongues. They are round, worm-shaped it is called, and except in the genus of sapsuckers, very long. They can be pushed out far beyond the end of the beak. That is so that they can reach into a deep hole for the insects they eat. They have little barbs or sharp points on the tip, to catch their prey, and they are sticky besides. The tongue of the sapsucker has a brush at the end and is not barbed.

One of the most notable things about a woodpecker is his bill, which he uses as a drill and also to drum with.

Woodpeckers are made to take care of the large limbs and trunks of trees, to get out from under the bark the grubs which would kill them. They are perfectly fitted for the work.

As you learn more about birds and beasts, you will see that every one is exactly fitted for his work in life. A worm is as well fitted to be a worm as a bird is to be a bird. How this came to be so has long been a study of the wise men, and they have not found out all about it yet.

The largest of this family that is common is the Golden-winged Woodpecker, or Flicker. He is as large as a pigeon. In the Eastern States is the golden-wing, in the West and California the red-shafted, who differs merely in the dress.

The gold-winged woodpecker has a brown back with black bars, and a light breast with heavy black spots. His wings and tail are yellow on the inside. He has a bright red collar on the back of his neck, a heavy black crescent on his breast, and black cheek patches or bars running down from the corners of his mouth.

The Red-shafted Flicker has red cheek patches instead of black, and omits the red collar altogether. His breast is a little grayer, and the wing and tail linings are scarlet. Both flickers have large white spots on the back, above the tail, which show very plainly when they fly.

These two varieties of the flicker are found from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Their ways of living are the same, and what is said of one will do as well for the other.

A flicker hangs himself up to sleep. He takes a good hold of a tree trunk, or upright limb, with his grapnel-shaped toes, presses his stiff tail against the bark, and hangs there all night. When he flies, he goes in great waves, as if he were galloping through the air.

The nest of this woodpecker is a snug little room in a tree trunk, or sometimes a telegraph-pole. He usually selects a tree that is dead, or partly so, but sometimes he takes a solid one. The little room is cut out by the strong, sharp beaks of the pair. The door of this home is just a round hole rather high up on the trunk. A passage is cut straight in for a little way and then turns down, and there the room is made. It has to be of pretty good size, for the bird is fond of a large family. Five or six and occasionally more young flickers have been found in a nest.

Fashions change in the bird world as well as in the human. Woodpeckers more than any others are changing their habits, and improving their condition. They have found an easier way to get a home than to chisel it out of wood. Nowadays woodpeckers often cut a hole through a board which admits them into a garret, a church tower, or the walls of an unused building, and make the nest there. Thus they save themselves much labor. One even cut out a home in a haystack.

These birds have changed too, it is said, in their notions about eating. They do not think it necessary to dig out every mouthful from under tree bark. The flicker feeds on the ground. He eats many insects, but mostly ants. When insects are scarce, he eats many wild berries—dogwood, black alder, poke-berries, and others—and the seeds of weeds.

Young woodpeckers in the nest are fed mostly upon insects. When they get big enough to climb up to the door of their snug home, they stick their heads out and call for something to eat. Then one can hardly pass through the woods without hearing them, for they have good loud voices. And of course they are always hungry.

The way they are fed is by regurgitation. That is, the old bird swallows the food she gets, and when she wants to feed, she jerks it up again. She thrusts her bill far down the little one's throat, as I told you the hummingbird does. Then she gives three or four pokes as if she were hammering it down. A young flicker does not seem to know how to swallow. A lady once picked up a nestling who was hurt, and to get him to eat anything she had to poke it down his throat herself.

The gold-winged woodpecker is a lively bird, most interesting to know. He makes so many strange noises that I can't tell you half of them, and his ways are as queer as his notes. He does not sing much, but he is a great drummer. When he finds a tin roof, or eaves gutter that pleases him, he will drum on it till he drives the family nearly crazy. He seems particularly to delight in waking them all up in the morning.

He can sing, too. I have heard a flicker sing a droll little song, not very loud, swinging his body from side to side as he did it.

Another thing this bird can do is dance. Two flickers will stand opposite one another and take funny little steps, forward and back, and sideways. Then they will touch their bills together and go through several graceful figures. This has been seen several times by persons whose truthfulness can be relied upon.

The Red-headed Woodpecker is another common one of the family, especially in the Middle States. He is a little smaller than the flicker. No one can mistake this bird, he is so plainly marked. His whole head is bright red. The rest of him is black, or bluish black, with a large mass of white on the body and wings.

This woodpecker, too, has partly given up getting food from under the bark. He takes a good deal on the wing, like a flycatcher. Sometimes he goes to the ground for a large insect like a cricket or grasshopper, and he is fond of nuts, especially the little three-cornered beech-nut.

The red-head is beginning to store food for winter use, for most woodpeckers do not migrate. When beech-nuts are ripe, he gets great quantities of them, and packs them away in queer places, where he can find them when he wants them.

Some of his nuts the red-head puts in cavities in trees, others in knot-holes or under bark that is loose. Many he fits into cracks in the bark, and hammers in tight. He has been known to fill the cracks in a gate-post, and in railroad ties, and even to poke his nuts between the shingles on a roof. Any place where he can wedge a nut in he seems to think is a good one.

A woodpecker can eat almost anything. Besides insects and nuts, he likes wild berries of all kinds—dogwood, cedar, and others that he finds in the woods.

The nest of the red-headed woodpecker is usually cut out in the dead top or limb of a tree. In prairie lands, where trees are scarce, he contents himself with telegraph-poles and fence-posts.

This bird is rather a dainty feeder. He does not swallow his food wherever he finds it, as many birds do. He likes a regular dining-table. So he takes it to some place on top of a fence-post or an old stump, where he has found or made a little hollow. There he puts his nut or acorn, picks it to pieces, and eats it in bits.

The young red-head is a good deal like his father, only his head is brown instead of red. A queer thing happened to a baby red-head in Indiana one summer. He was found on the ground, hopping about in a pitiful way, unable to fly. The parents and others of the woodpecker tribe were flying about him, much troubled, and trying to help him. But this young one had been hurt, or was not yet strong enough to get about. He acted as if he were half paralyzed, and he was wholly helpless. Once while the little bird was hobbling about and calling for something to eat, and no one was there to feed him, a robin happened to notice him. He took pity on the hungry baby, and brought him a nice worm, which he took very gladly.

But still more strange was the way the family cat acted toward the little stranger. When she saw him on the ground, she started for him. No doubt she meant to catch him, for she was a great bird hunter. When she got almost up to the little fellow, she seemed suddenly to notice that he was a baby, and helpless. At once her manner changed. She went up to him, and actually played with him in the gentlest way, not hurting him in the least. She did this several times before the bird got strong enough to fly. This is a true story.

The Californian Woodpecker takes the place of the red-head in California. He is most interesting because of one habit which gives him the common name of "carpenter woodpecker." This habit is of storing sweet acorns for winter use.

Other birds store acorns, but this bird has found out a new way. He drills a hole in the bark of a tree for each acorn by itself. It is generally a soft pine or cedar, and sometimes thousands of acorns are put in one tree. Often a trunk will be filled from near the ground up forty feet. The acorns are driven in point first, and so tightly that they have to be cut out with a knife. When a tree is filled, it is carefully guarded till they are needed.

Many people think they lay up these acorns for the worms that sometimes come into them. But Mr. John Muir, who lives right there, and knows them as well as anybody in the world, says the birds eat the sound acorns themselves. Sometimes, when food is scarce, Indians go to these trees and steal the poor birds' store. They have to chop the acorns out with hatchets. They often take a bushel from one tree.

These birds are more social than most woodpeckers. Often a party of them will be seen together. In his flight and his ways of eating this bird is like the red-headed woodpecker. Like him also, he is fond of clinging to a dead limb, and drumming, hours at a time.

But in looks the Californian and the red-headed woodpeckers are very different. The Western bird has only a cap of bright red. His back is glossy blue-black, and he has the same color on the breast. His other under parts are white, and he has a white patch on the wings, and another just above the tail.

The smallest of our woodpeckers is the Downy Woodpecker, who is not much bigger than an English sparrow. The picture shows two of these birds. In "The First Book of Birds" there is a picture of a flicker at his nest-hole.