southern people, at the price of two, and sometimes three buckskins a bill.

Nuttall states that it is a constant resident in the countries where it is found, in the warmer regions, breeding in the rainy season, and that the pair are believed to be united for life. "More vagrant," says Nuttall, in continuation, "and independent than the rest of his family, he is never found in the precincts of cultivated tracts; the scene of his dominion is the lonely forest, amidst trees of the greatest magnitude. His reiterated trumpeting note, somewhat similar to the high tones of the clarionet (pait, pait, pait, pait) is heard soon after day, and until a late morning hour, echoing loudly from the recesses of the dark cypress swamps, where he dwells in domestic security, without showing any impertinent or necessary desire to quit his native solitary abodes. Upon the giant trunk and inaccessible and mossgrown arms of this colossus of the forest, and amidst inaccessible and almost ruinous piles of mouldering logs, the high rattling clarion and repeated strokes of this princely woodpecker are often the only sounds which vibrate through and communicate an air of life to those dis

mal wilds. His stridulous, interrupted call, and loud industrious blows may often be heard for more than half a mile, and become audible at various distances, as the elevated mechanic raises or depresses his voice, or as he flags or exerts himself in his laborious employment. His retiring habits, loud notes, and singular occupation, amidst scenes so savage yet majestic, afford withal a peculiar scene of solemn grandeur, on which the mind dwells for a moment with sublime contemplation, convinced that there is no scene in nature devoid of harmonious consistence.

"Nor is the performance of this industrious hermit less remarkable than the peals of his sonorous voice, or the loud choppings of his powerful bill. He is soon surrounded with striking monuments of his industry: like a real carpenter, (a nickname given him by the Spaniards,) he is seen surrounded with cart-loads of chips and broad flakes of bark, which rapidly accumulate round the roots of the tall pine and cypress where he has been a few hours employed; the work of half a dozen men, felling trees for a whole morning, would scarcely exceed the pile he has produced in quest of a single breakfast upon those

insect larvæ which have already, perhaps, succeeded in deadening the tree preparatory to his repast. Many thousand acres of pine-trees in the Southern States have been destroyed in a single season by the insidious attacks of insects, which in the dormant state are not larger than a grain of rice. It is in quest of these enemies of the most imposing part of the vegetable creation that the industrious and indefatigable woodpecker exercises his peculiar labour. In the sound and healthy tree he finds nothing which serves him for food."

Wilson, whose "American Ornithology" is known to every lover of the subject and of nature, wounded one of these birds. His narrative is painful. The woodpecker did not survive his captivity more than three days, during which he manifested an unconquerable spirit, and refused all sustenance. When he was taken he uttered cries almost like those of an infant; and no sooner was he left alone for an hour, than he so worked that he nearly made a way through the wooden house in which he was confined. He severely wounded Wilson whilst the naturalist was sketching him, and died with unabated spirit. This unconquerable courage most probably gave the head and bill of the bird so much value in the eyes of the Indian.

The four or five white eggs are generally deposited in a hole in the trunk of a cypress-tree, at a considerable height, at which both the male and female have laboured, to enlarge and fit it for the purposes of incubation, till it is some two or more feet in depth. About the middle of June, the young are seen abroad. Besides the usual arboreal insects, this woodpecker, it is said, is fond of grapes and other berries; but Indian corn, other grain, or any orchard fruit, it does not touch, according to good authorities.

its shaggy olive-green crusts some of our old trees, is often substituted for the Iceland moss, and appears to have equally tonic properties. This is the liverwort sticta, and it is used in Siberia for giving the bitter principle to ale. Almost all the species of sticta grow on trees, in form of rudely-shapen leaves, and they are among the handsomest of our native lichens.

Equal to the Iceland moss in its usefulness to man and animals, is that wellknown lichen of the north, called the reindeer moss, which, as Linnæus has observed, grows in greater abundance than any other vegetable throughout Lapland. The Almighty hand which planted it, has adapted this humble vegetable to the climate, as well as to the necessities of these cheerless regions. On this herbage the reindeer of the Laplander subsists during the greater portion of the year. These animals will not feed upon hay, and will eat no dried plants, except some species of horsetail; but when the summer's wind blows over the mountains, they will range away from the store of lichens to feed upon the wild flowers and green pastures. Lapland has these, too, in their season; and then the reindeer crops the blue sow thistle, and the marsh trefoil, and the lady's mantle, and the rosebag willow, and all those blossoms which the Laplander terms the Midsommar's blomster, and they eat the young shoots of the mountain shrubs, which they crop hastily as they pass along. But the reindeer moss is the grand means of support to the herds of deer; and as the lichen is adapted to the wants of the animal, so the animal is fitted to be the stay and comfort of the people of the land.

To the Laplander, the reindeer is his sole property, and some of the richest of the mountaineers possess from five hundred even to a thousand of these animals. Thomson, in his “Seasons,” thus notices them:

"The reindeer form their riches. These their tents,

Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth

Supply, their wholesome fare and cheerful cups.
Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe
Yield to the sled their necks, and whirl them
swift

O'er hill and dale, heap'd into one expanse
Of marbled snow, as far as eye can sweep,
With a blue crust of ice unbounded glazed,
By dancing meteors seen, that ceaseless shake
A waving blaze reflected o'er the heavens,
And vivid moon and stars that keener play
With double lustre, from the glassy waste."

Hoffberg says that there are two varieties of the reindeer lichen, one of which, called the woodland species, covers over the sandy gravelly fields, and makes them as white as if the snow or the hoary frost of heaven had fallen over them. The large barren desert lands of Lapland are white with it, and marshes and dry rocks are clad in its rugged tufts. The Alpine species is to the mountains what the woodland kind is to the plains; and when from a mountain height the pines and firs of a forest are cut down, then this lichen springs up in thickest abundance. The Laplander in these districts has wood enough and to spare, and he can afford, now and then, to burn a whole forest for the sake of the valuable lichen, which rises among the ashes of the fallen trees, getting larger and larger every year, till, after ten successive seasons, it becomes a plantation of immense value. The Laplander rejoices in his desert, white with the crops of reindeer moss, as we should rejoice in the rich fruit of the corn-field, or as the native of the sunny south would be gladdened by his vineyard and olive-yard.

These people often take their herds, during the summer season, to some of the highest spots of the mountains, when the scene seems dreary and cold in the extreme, and when, as Barron observes, no signs of vegetation are exhibited, save here and there some scanty bed of moss and lichen, the most common of which is the reindeer species. Here this traveller found these poor but contented people living in huts made of the poles of the birch tree and grass tufts, braving the sun and the cold winds and furious storms of the mountains, for the sake of the pasturage, which their heights afforded for their herds of deer. In winter, however, the greater number of these animals come down to the plains, and, rooting under the snow for the lichen, bring it out from some depth below the surface. This they are enabled to do by means of the hard skin with which the nose, forehead, and feet are covered, and which protects them from the icy crust that les upon the snow. Sad, indeed, is it for the poor Laplander and his herd, when the cold winter season commences with heavy rains. This is not often, but when it is the case, the water hardens into ice, which, hiding the lichen, as with a thick, firm crust, brings starvation alike to the reindeer and their owners. Many reindeer perish for want of food under such

circumstances, though their masters will save some of the smaller herds by felling trees which are covered with a long black lichen. This, like masses of shaggy, dark hair, is common on the forest trees, and it yields a poor, but temporary supply for the perishing animal. This plant is the mane-like alectoria of the botanist.

Although the Icelanders have not, like the Laplanders, their herds of deer, yet the reindeer lichen grows in abundance on their plains of lava, making them in some places look truly beautiful by its tufts. In the winter of this country, the snow is frequently scraped from the surface of the ground, to give the sheep the means of feeding on this and some other Barron lichens so abundant in Iceland. observes of it: "I brought some of the reindeer lichen to England, and on spreading it on a saucer of water, all its little delicate tubular ramifications became full and plump, taking their natural position; but it turned black the next day." This plant is found in some of the woods of our native land. Kalm remarks, that it grows in great plenty in the woods of Quebec, and says that the French, in their long journeys through the woods in their fur trade with the Indians, sometimes boil this moss for want of better food, and think it very nutritious. There is no doubt that it is so. Sir Arthur Capell de Brooke, who passed a winter in Lapland, observes of the reindeer Jichen: "The properties of this plant, which is so providentially strewed over a country destitute of almost every other vegetable, are very nourishing, and capable of supporting even man himself, though it is not, I believe, ever used for this purpose by the Laplanders. It seems probable that this, as well as Iceland moss, might be applied with great advantage to the purpose of making a more nutritious and palatable bread than that which is used occasionally in the north of Sweden and Norway by the peasants in years of extreme scarcity.' The chief ingredient of this bread is the bark of the fir tree.

A species of lichen, which is very common in our native land, may be easily known by its peculiar form. This is the cup moss, which is, however, in shape more like a wine-glass on a tall stem than a cup. It may be seen in spring on banks, or heaths, or rocky places, appearing at first as a number of gray-green circular patches, but gradually growing into little cups or slender stems,

| sometimes an inch in length. The plant is of a gray green, and very pretty, but exceedingly brittle. It is valued by villagers, as they make of it a decoction with which to cure the hooping-cough, and it has also been used by medical practitioners as a febrifuge, and so, too, has the similarly shaped scarlet cup moss, which glitters like a ruby, wearing an intensely scarlet tint, so lovely, that it is to be regretted that no skill can preserve its beauty for many hours after it is gathered.

It is in winter that we see the greater number of lichens. As Bishop Mant has described:

"Would you haply wish to trace
The wonders of the lichen race,
Cold, but congenial to their kinds,
The wintry air pervades, unbinds
The tubercled and warty crust,
Which in the summer heat, a dust,
Now swoll'n with moisture, spreads around
In shapes fantastic: and the ground,
Stones, rocks, and walls, and heathy waste,
And branching tree, exhibits, cased
In spots with many a shining boss,
Or mingles with the verdant moss;
Prank'd like the snake's enamell'd skin,
Fit weed to wrap a fairy in ;'
With hues as manifold as glow
Embroider'd on the heavenly bow."

These plants are, as every one has observed, common enough on our native

trees.

Some are peculiar to one kind of tree, others gather alike on all, as well as on rocks and palings. The fir woods, or moist or moory ground, are arrayed with numbers of these plants, and the fruit orchard trees are often gray with them. The oak, the ash, the fir, the birch, the sloe, the hawthorn, the apple, and the pear, seem, when old, almost weighed down by them; but the elm, the sycamore, and the lime most frequently escape their intrusion; and as to the lordly beech, it is sometimes, though it has lived for hundreds of years, with scarcely a lichen on its smooth trunk.

One of the commonest of our native lichens may be seen on almost any country spot of our island, on old branches of trees, or old tiles, or thickly encrusting the wooden palings of the park or garden. It is commonly called yellow moss, from its deep yellow tint, and is the wall parmelia of the botanist. It is said, when mixed with alum, to yield a good dye, and is of a very bitter taste. It has been used as a medicine in intermittent fevers, not in Great Britain only, but throughout Europe. The old hawthorn is in the autumn generally profusely covered with the yellow moss. The genus parmelia,

to which this plant belongs, is very extensive. One species, called the candle-dying parmelia, though by other botanists termed the candle-dying leca- | nora, which grows, in scaly crusts, at all seasons of the year on the trees and palings of England, is employed by the Swedes to give a colour to the candles which they use in the religious ceremonies of their church.

Among the lichens which lend their hoary livery to conceal the decayed limbs of the trees of many of our woodlands, are the different species of usnea, or, as it is commonly called, tree-beard, or Jupiter's beard. The crustaceous branched tufts of these plants hang about the firs, and oaks, and other trees during winter, and are of a grayish green. The name usnea is said to have originated in the Arabic achneh, which is the word by which the Arabian physicians designate the lichens in general. When trees are covered, as they often are, with these hair-like lichens, they have a very picturesque and venerable appearance.

The plaited usnea, found commonly, not on the aged tree only, but on the park or garden paling, is said to be a good cure for the hooping-cough. Another very common lichen of Great Britain, called the evernia, or stag's-horn, may be found on the oak or other trees at almost any time of the year. It is said to have the peculiar property of imbibing and long retaining sweet odours, and is therefore powdered and used for scent-bags and scent-vases. It is also recommended as likely to prove useful in pulmonary affections. Evelyn remarks of it: "This very moss of the oak, that is white, composes choicest cypress powder, which is esteemed good for the head; but impostors familiarly vend other mosses under that name, as they do the fungi for the true agaric, to the great scandal of physic. One species of evernia is said by the Swedes to be poisonous to wolves, and is called by them ulf

mossa.

Several species of lichen, too, termed the ramalina, are found covering with their bushy tufts the trees on which the species of evernia are collected, especially on the oak tree, and also on the fir, the ash, the birch, and hawthorn. The beech is not so covered with the shaggy lichens as the oak and other trees; but there is a lichen which clothes, though far more sparingly, the trunks and boughs of the old beechen tree, which has for

centuries given its shadow to some of our old parks, and fed thousands of deer by its autumnal fruits. On such trees we may almost depend on finding the bitter zoned variolaria. This plant contains oxalic acid, and it is said by sir W. Hooker to be now much used in France for furnishing this acid. It is exceedingly bitter, and forms a sort of crust-like spot upon the tree. The genus received its botanical name because the spots on this lichen were thought to resemble the variolæ, or measles. Several species are to be found in this country on trunks of trees, or on rocks, walls, or the ground. One species which grows on rocks in mountainous districts, the milky white variolaria, is a very elegant lichen, and it is used in dyeing.

Some of the different species of lecidea are well-known lichens, especially to those who live among mountains. Many of them are extremely beautiful, when examined; but their beauty is not discoverable, on account of their minuteness, by any but those who place them beneath the microscope. This is the case with the species termed the geographical lecided, which is a small crust on the old rock.

We have already adverted to the uses of some of the lichen tribe as food; but there are, besides those already mentioned, several which are cooked and eaten. A lichen which is common in Tartary is a frequent food of the people of that land, and the lichen called the alectoria has been, in times of scarcity in Saxony, ground and mixed with the wheat flour. One species of alectoria which grows on trees in warm countries in Asia, Africa, and America, hangs down its branched tufts sixteen or eighteen inches. The Arabian physicians used it as a cordial, for the purpose of procuring sleep. The nutritive properties of lichens appears to depend on the presence of a substance analogous to gelatine, which in some exists in the form of pure starch. Two species of the large lichen, called the target-bearer, which are very handsome plants, are much valued by the Swedish peasants, when boiled with milk, as a remedy for the thrush; and one of them is considered a cure for madness in dogs.

We have hitherto considered the lichens chiefly in the use of which they are to men and animals as food. Another valuable principle, however, exists in this tribe of plants, which renders