where but in the trees, and I don't suppose that it ever entered his
head to set foot on the ground. It was the same with his children and
his children's children for a long time.

"But though they lived as true Woodpeckers should, the Flickers always
were a bit sharper-witted and more independent than most of their
relatives. For one thing they had discovered that ants were fine eating
and that great numbers of them were to be found running up and down the
trunks of certain trees. So the Flickers used to look for these trees
and feast on the ants. It saved a lot of labor. A stomachful of ants
could be picked from the trunk of a tree in the time it would take to
dig out one worm in the wood, to say nothing of the saving of hard work.

"One day a few years ago my great-great-great-grandfather, so the story
goes, had stuffed himself with ants from the trunk of a tree and had
settled himself for a rest. From where he sat he could see a procession
of ants going up and down the tree, and he got to wondering where they
all came from and where they all went to. So he watched and presently
discovered that that double line of ants led out along the ground from
the foot of the tree. This made him still more curious and he followed
it, flying along just over it. He had gone but a short distance when he
came to a little mound of sand, and there the line of ants ended.
Grandfather Flicker flew up in a tree from which he could look right
down on that mound, and it didn't take him long to discover that those
ants were going in and out of little holes in that mound.

"'As I live, that must be their home!' exclaimed he. 'That place is
alive with them. What a place to fill one's stomach! I never was on the
ground in my life, but the next time I'm hungry, I'm going to see what
the ground is like. I won't have to stay on it long to get my dinner
here.'

"Grandfather Flicker was as good as his word. When he was ready for
another meal, he flew down to that ant hill. He found that when he
plunged his bill into it, the ants fairly poured out to see what was
happening, and all he had to do was to thrust out his long sticky tongue
and lick them up. Never in all his life before had he filled his stomach
so easily. After that, instead of wasting time hunting for worms and
insects in the trees where he could find only one at a time, Grandfather
Flicker kept his eyes open for ant hills on the ground. He taught his
children to do the same thing. T