“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, 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 Soon the living trap, laden with game, is withdrawn into the beak.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?” “But its passion for ants,” resumed Uncle Paul, “does not make the woodpecker neglect its duty as keeper of forests. It goes climbing up tree trunks, tapping the sickly parts, and pecking away with blows that at a distance sound like hammer strokes. If a passer-by interrupts it at its work it does not immediately fly away, but runs around the trunk like a squirrel, and from the other side sticks out its head a little to see who or what is coming. If the intruder advances, the woodpecker goes on around the tree, always keeping on the opposite side until it becomes frightened, when it flies off, making the woods ring with its sonorous tiackackan, tiackackan. It flies with swift darts and bounds, swooping down, then rising, describing a series of undulating arches in the air.