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BIRDS AND MAMMALS IN RELATION TO NUTS IN THE 



NORTHEASTERN STATES 



Bif Dr. JV. L. McAtee, Assistant in Charge, Food Habits Research, 



Biological Survey 



U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 



The word nut, one of indefinite application, witness the term 

 pine-nut, is restricted for the purposes of the present pajier to fruits 

 of hickory, walnut, hazel, chestnut, chinquapin, beech, and oak. These 

 fruits, like all food items available to birds and mammals, are utilized 

 more or less in proportion to their abundance, by vegetatarian species 

 tliat are large enough to grind them up, or swallow them whole, and by 

 certain smaller creatures that have special equipment for penetrating 

 their hard walls. 



Acorns, most numerous in individuals as well as in kinds, are 

 consumed more frequently than the other nuts by birds and mammals. 

 Twenty-seven species of northeastern birds are known to feed upon 

 acorns, those doing so most often being in the order of their importance, 

 the crow, blue jay. purple grackle, brown thrasher, ruffed grouse, 

 bobAvhite, and chewink among land birds, and the mallard and wood 

 duck among waterfowl. The wild turkey, a voracious feeder upon 

 acorns, is scarcely a bird of the northeastern states today. 



The acorn-eating birds use a varietj^ of feeding methods, the ducks, 

 grouse, and bobwhite swallowing the acorns whole, the crow, bluejay, 

 woodpeckers, and nuthatches splitting them with their strong beaks, 

 the cardinal and chewink cutting them open by sheer biting power, and 

 the purple grackle opening them by a process peculiar to itself. The 

 grackle has a hardened ridge projecting downward from the roof of 

 its mouth against which an acorn is firmly pressed while it is revolved 

 by action of the lower mandible and tongue. The shell is weakened by 

 this manipulation and soon breaks into very neatly severed halves. 



Wild animals of different kinds are fond of acorns, the black 

 bear greedily grinding them up, the white-tailed deer feeding upon 

 them freely at times, and the squirrels, chipmunks, and woods mice, 



