"Why, my dear boys, there are, as I told you once before, a great many things which I do not know; and what I do know I am very willing to tell you. But you may learn just as I did,--by reading, by taking notice of things around you, and by thinking for yourselves. And I do not know any thing more pleasant to notice than the works of God. I see his wisdom and his goodness in every thing which he has made. I see them in the insects, and the birds, and the larger animals; I see them in the grass, and the flowers, and the trees; and I see them in the rocks and the stones upon the ground. All these things are well worth our attention, boys; the study of all these things around us is called the study of 'Natural History;' and I think it is apt to make him who loves it a better man; at any rate, I believe that there have been very few who have been fond of it, who have not been amiable and benevolent men. But, hark! Do you hear that noise?" "Yes, Uncle Philip; it is the sound of men chopping wood in that clump of trees." "No, boys; it is like the sound of a wood-cutter; and it is a wood-cutter, but he does not use one of our hatchets." "What is it that he uses, then?" "He uses the tool which God gave him. It is a bird, boys, which you hear: it is the woodpecker. See, there it is on yonder tree, and look, at the foot of it, there is something like a bushel of the bird's chips or dust. Its bill is a complete chisel; it is straight, hard, and sharp, with edges too upon the sides. It is not a very broad chisel, but still it is one, and used as we use ours. But the chisel is not the only instrument of that workman. Its tongue is worth examining. It bores a hole into a tree that is dead or decaying, to look for insects whose nests are in the tree; and when it reaches the cell where the young insect is, it uses its tongue to get it out, and it suits exactly for the business. In the first place, it is so long that the bird can shoot it out three or four inches longer than the bill is; in the next place the end of it is tipped with a stiff, sharp, long thorn; and in the last place, that thorn has little teeth on both sides of it, like that which you see on the point of a fish-hook: these teeth are to keep the insect from falling off when it puts its tongue in the hole and sticks its sharp point into it to draw it out for food. So that besides the chisel, the woodpecker has a spear, or lance, or arrow, barbed (as it is called) or bearded at the point. "But we are some distance, boys, beyond the old mill: suppose we now turn back towards home; I find the gnats rather troublesome." "So do we, Uncle Philip; they have been biting us for some time: it would be well if there were no such tormenting things in the world."