. Animal life in field and garden . t othertimes in company with rooks and mantled daws. CHAPTER XXn WOODPECKERS IN front of Uncle Pauls house there is a grove ofbeeches several centuries old, its branches in-terlacing at a great height and forming a continuouscanopy supported by hundreds of tree trunks assmooth and white as stone columns. In the autumnthat is where Emile and Jules go and hunt in the^ , • f moss for mushrooms of all colors to show to their un-cle, who tells the boys how todistinguish the edible fromthe poisonous kinds. There,too, they hunt for beetles:the stag-beetle, whose la
. Animal life in field and garden . t othertimes in company with rooks and mantled daws. CHAPTER XXn WOODPECKERS IN front of Uncle Pauls house there is a grove ofbeeches several centuries old, its branches in-terlacing at a great height and forming a continuouscanopy supported by hundreds of tree trunks assmooth and white as stone columns. In the autumnthat is where Emile and Jules go and hunt in the^ , • f moss for mushrooms of all colors to show to their un-cle, who tells the boys how todistinguish the edible fromthe poisonous kinds. There,too, they hunt for beetles:the stag-beetle, whose largefat head bears enormousbranching nippers; greatblack capricorn-beetles thatmay be seen at sunset running along the deadbranches and clinging to them, as they go, with theirjointed antennae, which are longer than the insectsbody; and long-horn beetles, likewise furnished withantennae of unusual length, and also remarkable fortheir wing sheaths richly colored with blue or yellowor red, with spots and stripes of black velvet. 163. Greater Spotted Woodpecker WOODPECKERS 169 A multitude of birds of many kinds make thisgrove their abode. There the quarrelsome jay fightswith one of its own species for the possession of abeechnut; there the magpie chatters on a highbranch and then flies do^\Ti and alights in a neigh-boring field, jerking up its tail and looking aroundwith an air of defiance; crows have their eveningrendezvous there; and there the woodpecker ham-mers away at old bark to make the insects come outso that it may snap them up with its viscous to the bird at its work; toe, toe, toe! If it isinterrupted in its task it flies away with a cry ofteo, teo, teo, repeated thirty or forty times in quicksuccession and resembling a noisy burst of laughter. What bird is it that seems to be making fun ofus with such loud laughter as it flies off! Emileand Jules asked each other one day when they werewatching from their window the woodpeckers andthe jays at play in the
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