Mother West Wind Where Stories | Page 9

"I do it because it is
the easiest way to get enough to eat."

Peter looked as surprised as he felt. "I thought that all your family got
their living in the trees!" he exclaimed.
"All do but me," replied Yellow-Wing a wee bit testily. "But I don't
have to do what they do just because they do it. No, Siree, I'm
independent! Do you like ants, Peter?"
"What?" exclaimed Peter.
"I asked if you like ants," repeated Yellow-Wing.
"I've never tried them," Peter replied, "but I've heard Old Mr. Toad say
they are very nice."
"They are," said Yellow-Wing. "They are more than nice--they are
de-li-cious. It is because of them that I spend so much time on the
ground. Ants changed the habits of the Flicker branch of the
Woodpecker family. I wouldn't be surprised if we became regular
ground birds one of these days."
Peter looked puzzled. He kept turning it over in his mind as he watched
Yellow-Wing plunge his long stout bill into an ant hill and then gobble
up the ants as they came rushing out to see what the trouble was.
"I don't see how ants could change the habits of anybody," he ventured
after a while.
Yellow-Wing's eyes twinkled. "Why don't you learn to eat them?" he
demanded. "If you would, they might change your habits. The
beginning of the change in the habits of my folks began a long time
ago."
"Way back in the beginning of things, when the world was young?"
asked Peter.
"No, not quite so far back as that," replied Yellow-Wing.
"Great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather, who was the first Flicker, was,
of course, a member of the Woodpecker family, and he got his living in

regular Woodpecker fashion. It never entered his head to look for food
anywhere but in the trees, and I don't suppose that it ever entered his
head to set foot on the ground. It was the same with his children and his
children's children for a long time.
"But though they lived as true Woodpeckers should, the Flickers
always were a bit sharper-witted and more independent than most of
their relatives. For one thing they had discovered that ants were fine
eating and that great numbers of them were to be found running up and
down the trunks of certain trees. So the Flickers used to look for these
trees and feast on the ants. It saved a lot of labor. A stomachful of ants
could be picked from the trunk of a tree in the time it would take to dig
out one worm in the wood, to say nothing of the saving of hard work.
"One day a few years ago my great-great-great-grandfather, so the story
goes, had stuffed himself with ants from the trunk of a tree and had
settled himself for a rest. From where he sat he could see a procession
of ants going up and down the tree, and he got to wondering where they
all came from and where they all went to. So he watched and presently
discovered that that double line of ants led out along the ground from
the foot of the tree. This made him still more curious and he followed it,
flying along just over it. He had gone but a short distance when he
came to a little mound of sand, and there the line of ants ended.
Grandfather Flicker flew up in a tree from which he could look right
down on that mound, and it didn't take him long to discover that those
ants were going in and out of little holes in that mound.
"'As I live, that must be their home!' exclaimed he. 'That place is alive
with them. What a place to fill one's stomach! I never was on the
ground in my life, but the next time I'm hungry, I'm going to see what
the ground is like. I won't have to stay on it long to get my dinner here.'
"Grandfather Flicker was as good as his word. When he was ready for
another meal, he flew down to that ant hill. He found that when he
plunged his bill into it, the ants fairly poured out to see what was
happening, and all he had to do was to thrust out his long sticky tongue
and lick them up. Never in all his life before had he filled his stomach
so easily. After that, instead of wasting time hunting for worms and

insects in the trees where he could find only one at a time, Grandfather
Flicker kept his eyes open for ant hills on the ground. He taught his
children to do the same thing. That was the beginning of the change of
habits with the Flickers. Ever since we have spent more and more time