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