278 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



task. The thunder-bird therefore made the water draw 

 back a very long distance. But when the crow went out 

 on the waste of sea-bottom she saw so many marine 

 monsters that she was frightened, and begged the thun- 

 der-bird not to make the waters recede so far; and that 

 is the reason that now but little ocean-bottom is ex- 

 posed at ebb tide on the Oregon coast. 



The Gualala Indians were a tribe of the great Porno 

 family that half a century ago dwelt happily in the 

 northwestern corner of Sonoma County, California, and 

 their staple food was the flour of crushed and filtered 

 acorns of several kinds of oaks. In their country, as 

 elsewhere in that State, the California woodpecker 

 (Melanerpes) is a very common bird, which has the 

 habit of drilling numerous small holes in pines and 

 other soft-wooded trees, and fixing in each an acorn — 

 a method of storing its favorite food against a time of 

 famine. The Indians understood this very well, and 

 in times of scarcity of food in camp they would cut 

 down the small trees and climb the big ones, and rob 

 the cupboards of the far more provident birds. "And 

 here," says Powers, 19 "I will make mention of a kind 

 of sylvan barometer. . . . These acorns are stored away 

 before the rainy season sets in, sometimes to the amount 

 of a half-bushel, and when they are wetted they pres- 

 ently swell and start out a little. So always, when a 

 rainstorm is brewing, the woodpeckers fall to work 

 with great industry a day or two in advance and ham- 

 mer them in all tight. During the winter, therefore, 

 whenever the woods are heard rattling with the pecking 

 of these busy little commissary-clerks heading up their 

 barrels of worms, the Indian knows a rainstorm is cer- 

 tain to follow." 



