In Demmin’s “Weapons of War” many such hammers and axes are figured. One of them is very remarkable. It is an ancient war-hammer made of black stone, and is shaped exactly like a pickaxe, except that one end of the head is carved into a semblance of some animal’s head. The handle is passed through an oval hole in the centre, just like our pickaxes of the present day. This remarkable example of the art of the Stone Age was found in Russia. The head was nearly a foot in length. * * * * * NATURE possesses many examples of this principle, of which I have chosen two, namely, the Woodpecker and the Nuthatch. [Illustration: NUTHATCH.] [Illustration: WOODPECKER.] [Illustration: HAMMER.] The wonderful power of beak possessed by both these birds is familiar to every one, but it is not so generally known that they do not merely peck after the usual fashion among birds, _i.e._ delivering the stroke with the force derived from the neck alone. These birds have an additional leverage. Grasping the tree firmly with their feet, they not only peck, but swing their whole bodies with each stroke, bringing their weight to bear upon the object. They thus convert themselves into living hammers, the feet acting the part of the human hand, the body of the bird being analogous to the handle of the hammer, and the head playing the same part in both cases. In England these birds are not known as well as they ought to be, partly because they are both very shy creatures, and partly because the gradual extinction of forests has deprived them, and especially the Woodpecker, of their undisturbed homes. Yet those who are early risers may see both birds in places where their presence is quite unsuspected, except, perhaps, by those who can recognise the signs which they have left behind them. There is a common saying to the effect that “a carpenter is known by his chips,” and the proverb is equally true of the Nuthatch and the Woodpecker. Nutshells scientifically split asunder, and jammed into the rough bark of a tree-trunk, betray at once the Nuthatch to the eye of a naturalist; while an accumulation of shattered bark, splinters of wood, and similar debris announces, in equally bold type, that a Woodpecker has been at work. The power of the Woodpecker’s beak may be gathered from Wilson’s well-known account of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, which he had wounded and was trying to rear. While staying at an hotel, he locked the bird in his room, and, on returning within an hour, found an astonishing state of things. “He had mounted along the side of the window, nearly as high as the ceiling, a little below which he had begun to break through. The bed was covered with large pieces of plaster, the lath was exposed for at least fifteen inches square, and a hole large enough to admit the fist opened to the weather boards, so that in less than another hour he would certainly have succeeded in making his way through.