MORE ABOUT HIS FOOD 55 
out, and I do not know that they wanted to. 
When grasshoppers were scarce in the fields, he 
came day after day to his queer storehouse, till 
he had eaten every one. 
One of the woodpecker family who lives in 
Mexico stores nuts and acorns in the stems of 
plants. These stems are hollow and made in 
joints like bamboo. The bird cuts a hole at the 
upper end of a joint, and stuffs it full. When 
he wants his nuts, he cuts a hole at the lower 
end of the joint and pulls them out. 
I once had a tame blue jay, who was fond of 
saving what he could not eat, and putting it 
safely away. The place he seemed to think 
most secure was somewhere about me, and he 
would come slyly around me as I sat at work, 
and try to hide his treasure about my clothes. 
When it was a dried currant or bit of bread, 
I did not care; but when he came on to my 
shoulder, and tried to tuck a dead meal worm 
into my hair or between my lips, or a piece of 
raw beef under a ruffle or in my ear, I had to 
decline to be used as a storehouse, much to his 
orief. 
He liked to put away other things as well as 
food. Matches he seemed to think were made 
for him to hide. His chosen place for them was 
between the breadths of matting on the floor. 
