48 BIRD WORLD. 



this sap, when it runs, and the number that are 

 destroyed by the birds is thought to balance the loss 

 to the tree, though it sometimes happens that the 

 tree dies in a year or two from being so bled by them. 



Those of you who have seen maple sugar made 

 from the sap of the sugar maple will think the bird 

 very cunning to find a sugar camp for his own. 



Another woodpecker does an equally curious thing. 

 I was riding one day in a park in southern California, 

 and a tree was pointed out to me that had holes as 

 close as these of the Sapsucker filled with acorns. A 

 woodpecker had bored the holes and filled them for 

 a winter store. The nuts were wedged in so tightly 

 it would not have been easy to get them out. In 

 the same line, but showing even greater intelligence, 

 is the use in Mexico of a hollow stalk. The birds 

 make holes and press acorns through them in autumn, 

 so that they drop one by one till the hollow tube is 

 filled. When other food fails the woodpecker draws 

 out his acorns, not from the place at which he put 

 them in but from the Hoor of his storehouse. 



