44 OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS. 
Most of the birds we are acquainted with pick their 
food very carefully, and eat only that which will digest 
without trouble. You can see them hold it down with 
one foot, looking at it closely to be quite sure that it 
is really good to eat. They often pull it to shreds and 
swallow it in lttle bits. If it is a butterfly dinner, 
the wings are torn off and sent floating to the ground. 
If it is a grasshopper supper, the tough, wiry legs of 
the insect are thrown away, and only the rich, luscious 
breast and fat thighs are eaten. 
In California we have the pepper tree, which is all 
covered with clusters of red berries. Under the thin, . 
red skin is a sweet, soft pulp which covers the seed. 
The pulp is all there is of the pepper berry which the 
birds can digest. But this is a very sweet morsel in- 
deed, and tourist birds come a long distance to get it. 
Robin redbreasts,! come here in winter to eat our 
pepper berries, and then, of course, they disgorge the 
hard seeds, which they cannot possibly digest, Just as 
the owls do the bones of their prey. 
We think the mocking-birds have taught the robins 
to do this, and we have noticed the waxwings? doing 
the same thing. 
When the winter tourist birds make a raid on our 
yards, we can hear the tiny pepper seeds fall in a 
shower on our tin roofs, under the tall trees, and the 
door-steps will be covered. Sometimes the seeds come 
down so thick and fast that we can think of nothing 
1 Merula migratoria propinqua. 2 Ampelis cedrorum. 
