woodpecker

• One of the most remarkable circumstances connected with this habit of the woodpecker is the length of flight required and accomplished. —  Scientific American Supplement, No. 531, March 6, 1886
• At times the wind arose and filled the forest with a solemn, rushing sound, and then again silence fell and only the distant notes of the cuckoo and the woodpecker were audible The Zmudzians were glad to hear those sounds, because the woodpecker was a special harbinger of good fortune. —  The Knights of the Cross or, Krzyzacy
• In the numerous tree-creeping groups, which, seem as unrelated to the oven-bird as the woodpecker is to the hoopoe, we find a score of wonderfully different forms of beak; but many of them retain the probing character, and are actually used to probe in rotten wood on trees, and to explore the holes and deep crevices in the trunk. —  The Naturalist in La Plata
• A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley. —  Legends That Every Child Should Know; a Selection of the Great Legends of All Times for Young People
• That laugh of the woodpecker was an assurance that Nature had suffered no change, and the town too, like the hills and rocks and running waters, seemed unchanged; but how different and how sad when I looked for those I once knew, whose hands I had hoped to grasp again! —  Afoot in England

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