one whose personal appearance is rapidly
changing. He illustrates in his present life a process well known
historically to all naturalists, viz., the modification of form
resulting from changed environment. I refer to the golden-winged
woodpecker, perhaps the most beautifully marked bird of the North,
whose names are as varied as his habits and accomplishments.

Nature intended him to get his living, as do the other woodpeckers, by
boring into old trees and stumps for the insects that live on the
decaying wood. For this purpose she gave him the straight, sharp,
wedge-shaped bill, just calculated for cutting out chips; the very
long horn-tipped tongue for thrusting into the holes he makes; the
peculiar arrangement of toes, two forward and two back; and the stiff,
spiny tail-feathers for supporting himself against the side of a tree
as he works. But getting his living so means hard work, and he has
discovered for himself a much easier way. One now frequently
surprises him on the ground in old pastures and orchards, floundering
about rather awkwardly (for his little feet were never intended for
walking) after the crickets and grasshoppers that abound there. Still
he finds the work of catching them much easier than boring into dry
old trees, and the insects themselves much larger and more
satisfactory.

A single glance will show how much this new way of living has changed
him from the other woodpeckers. The bill is no longer straight, but
has a decided curve, like the thrushes; and instead of the
chisel-shaped edge there is a rounded point. The red tuft on the head,
which marks all the woodpecker family, would be too conspicuous on the
ground. In its place we find a red crescent well down on the neck, and
partially hidden by the short gray feathers about it. The point of the
tongue is less horny, and from the stiff points of the tail-feathers
lamina are beginning to grow, making them more like other birds'. A
future generation will undoubtedly wonder where this peculiar kind of
thrush got his unusual tongue and tail, just as we wonder at the
deformed little feet and strange ways of a cuckoo.

The habits of this bird are a curious compound of his old life in the
woods and his new preference for the open fields and farms. Sometimes
the nest is in the very heart of the woods, where the bird glides in
and out, silent as a crow in nesting time. His feeding place meanwhile
may be an old pasture half a mile away, where he calls