572 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



And wlien we are confronted with the fact, wliich we do not feel at liberty 

 to ultogetlier disregard, that in very large regions this bird seems to labor in 

 vain, and makes no use of the treasures it has thus heaped togetlier, we 

 can only attempt an explanation. This Woodpecker is found over an im- 

 mense area. It everywliere has the same instinctive promptings to provide, 

 not "for a rainy day," but for the exact opposite, — for a long interval 

 during which no rain falls, for nearly two hundred days at a time, in all the 

 low and hot lands of Mexico and Central America. There these accumula- 

 tions become a necessity, there we are informed they do eat tlie acorns, and, 

 more than this, many other bii'ds and beasts derive the means of self-pres- 

 ervation in times of famine from the provident labors of this bird. That in 

 Oregon, in California, and in the mountains of Mexico and elsewhere, 

 where better and more natural food offers throughout the year, it is rarely 

 known to eat the acorns it has thus labored to save, only seems to prove that 

 it acts under tlie influences of an undiscriminating instinct that prompts it 

 to gather in its stores whether it needs them or not. 



It may be, too, that writers have too hastily inferred that these birds ne\ev 

 eat the acorns, because they have been unable to obtain complete evidence 

 of the fact. We have recently received from C. W. Plass, Esq., some inter- 

 esting facts, which, if they do not prove that these birds in tlie winter visit 

 their stores and eat their acorns, render it highly probable. Mv. Plass re- 

 sides near Napa City, Cal., near which city, and on the edge of the pine 

 forests, he has recently constructed a house. The gable-ends of this dwelling 

 the California Woodpeckers liave found a very convenient storehouse for 

 their acorns, and Mr. Plass has very considerately permitted them to do so 

 unmolested. The window iu the galjle slides up upon pullies its whole 

 length, to admit of a passage to the upper verandah, and the open space in 

 the wall admits of the nuts faUing dowu iuto the upper haU, and this fre- 

 quently happens when the birds attempt to extricate them from the outside. 

 Xearly all these nuts are found to be sound, and contain no worm, while 

 those that fall outside are empty shells. Empty shells have also been 

 noticed by Mr. Plass under the trees, indicating that the acorns have been 

 eaten. 



The Smithsonian Institution has received specimens of the American race 

 of this Woodpecker, collected at Belize by Dr. Berendt, and accompanied 

 by illustrations of their work in the way of implantation of acorns in the 

 bark of trees. 



The eggs of tins Woodpecker, obtained by ilr. Emanuel Samuels near 

 Petaluma, Cal., and no\\- in tlie collection of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History, are undisthiguishable from the eggs of other Woodpeckers in form 

 or color, except that they are somewhat oblong, and measure 1.12 inches in 

 length by .00 of an inch iji breadth. 



