240 OMNIVOROUS BIRDS. 



butes this note to the Red-eyed Fly-catcher, certainly the 

 same bird as that which exclusively takes up its summer 

 residence with us. But it is impossible, with the most 

 inventive imagination, to construe this strongly marked 

 phrase out of the simple and almost invariable warble of 

 our Fly-catcher. 



The Peto, besides insects, like the Jay, to which he is 

 allied, chops up acorns, cracks nuts and hard and shelly 

 seeds, to get at their contents, holding them meanwhile 

 in his feet. He also searches and pecks decayed trees 

 and their bark with considerable energy and indus- 

 try in quest of larvae ; he often also enters into hollow 

 trunks, prying after the same objects. In these holes they 

 commonly roost in winter, and occupy the same secure 

 situations, or the holes of the small Woodpecker, for de- 

 positing and hatching their eggs, which takes place early 

 in April or in May, according to the different parts of the 

 Union they happen to inhabit. Sometimes they dig out 

 a cavity for themselves with much labor, and always line 

 the hollow with a variety of warm materials.* Their 

 eggs, about 6 to 8, are white, with a few small specks of 

 brownish-red near the larger end. The whole family, 

 young and old, may be seen hunting together throughout 

 the summer and winter, and keeping up a continued 

 mutual chatter. 



According to the observations of Wilson, it soon be- 

 comes familiar in confinement, and readily makes its way 

 out of a wicker cage by repeated blows at the twigs. It 

 may be fed on hemp-seed, cherry-stones, apple-pippins, 

 and hickory-nuts, broken and thrown in to it. In its 

 natural state, like the rest of its vicious congeners, it 

 sometimes destroys small birds by blows on the skull. f 



* Audubon, Cm. Biog. i. p. 200. t Ibid. 



