for two very opposite purposes: the engraving of playing-cards and the illustration of books of devotion. A book of 40 leaves, with a picture and a text of Scripture on each page, is one of the earliest illustrated books known, dating back to the early part of the 15th century. Dürer made great advances in the art in the beginning of the 16th century, and Bewick, who in 1790 published his British Quadrupeds and in 1804 British Birds, illustrated by himself, showed the possibilities of the art and made it one of the most important of the arts. Its use became general in books, magazines and newspapers, but has been superseded by the various forms of photographic reproduction.
Wood-Pewee. See Pewee, Wood.
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| HAIRY WOODPECKER |
Wood′peck′er, the name for any member of the family Picidæ. This includes birds with stout bills with which they peck wood to obtain insects. Their long tongue is barbed at the end and capable of being greatly protruded. It is in every way adapted for piercing and securing insect larvæ. These birds are of great service to the farmer. Professor Beal declares that they are the “only agents which can successfully cope with the insects of forest and partly of fruit-trees, and for this reason if for no other they should be protected in every possible way.” As a family they are black and white, stiff quills and pointed tails helping them to brace against tree-trunks. Though not songsters, they have loud calls and communicate by drumming. They nest in holes in trees, sometimes in telegraph poles.
| The woodpecker is hard at work — |
| A carpenter is he — |
| And you may hear him hammering |
| His nest high up a tree. |
There are about 350 species found in all parts of the world, except the Australian region and Madagascar. Nearly half of the entire number occur in the New World, and about 25 species are found in North America. Their colors generally are bright, and the males usually have some red on the head. Among the species of the United States the flicker or golden-winged woodpecker is one of the best known. It feeds mainly on ants, and therefore is frequently seen on the ground. The other woodpeckers almost always are seen on trees. The redheaded woodpecker is abundant in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.
The downy and hairy woodpeckers are smaller birds, both being common. The ivory-billed woodpecker, with a length of 21 inches, is the most magnificent of North American woodpeckers. It is black, with white on the shoulders and wings and, in the males, a scarlet crest. This bird is found in the south and formerly ranged as far north as southern Illinois. The pileated woodpecker also is one of the giants of the family; it has a blackish-brown body and a scarlet head and crest. It is very wild, rare, save in deep forest far from haunt of man. The yellow-bellied woodpecker is the one real sap-sucker. Consult Eckstrom's The Woodpeckers. See Flicker and Sapsucker.
Wood's Holl, a town in Falmouth Township, Barnstable County, Mass., on Cape Cod, noteworthy as a center for zoölogical research. Here is the Marine Biological Laboratory (C. O. Whitman, director), which is the most important seaside laboratory in America. The laboratories of the United States Fish Commission are also here.
Wood′stock, Can., in Oxford County, Ontario. It has excellent railway accommodation by the Canadian Pacific and the Grand Trunk and electric railway communication with adjacent towns. It is the center of a rich dairying country. Its furniture, wagon and piano factories do a large epxport business. It owns its own electric plant. The province maintains an epileptic hospital here.
Wool, one of the most important of all animal substances, ranks next to cotton in its use in the manufacture of clothing. It is a sort of hair, growing on sheep and on goats. The fiber differs from a hair in being crinkly or wavy and in having very minute scales, both of which properties fit it for its uses. The wavy twist keeps it from unwinding when made into yarn, and the scales make the threads catch each other, a process known as felting. Wool varies in quality with different species of sheep and also with the food, shelter and climate. The Saxon wool has the most of the felting property, and the wool of the Angora goat, called mohair, is the whitest, while that of the Kashmir goat is very soft and rich though short. The merino sheep furnishes one of the best varieties of wool, a single fleece usually weighing about four or five pounds. In the manufacture of woolen goods the wool is sorted into different grades, washed, scoured and dried. It is then dyed, if to be dyed in the wool, and carded or made into threads, ready for weaving. After weaving, the cloth is scoured to remove the oil and dust, dyed, if dyed in the piece, and dried on stretchers. It is then fulled, a process that shrinks the cloth and makes it more compact. Teasling, a process to raise the threads, and shearing, which cuts them the right length to form the nap, follow, shearing often being repeated several times. The boiling of the
