86 THE BIRD GROWN UP 
Woodpeckers have also learned to cut a hole 
through a board and nest inside a building, in- 
stead of drilling a deep hole in the trunk of a 
tree for a nest. 
Birds show intelligence when they draw us 
away from their young ones, by acting as if 
they were hurt and not able to fly. I have al- 
ready spoken about that. 
Sometimes when a bird is caught he will he 
quiet and pretend to be dead. But all the time 
he is looking out for a chance to fly away. 
A man who watched birds very closely once 
saw an interesting instance of their intelligence. 
They were two of the birds who get their food 
on the seashore by turning over stones and eat- 
ing the creatures hidden under them. They 
had found a big dead fish thrown up on the 
beach and half buried in sand. Under such a 
fish they were sure they should find food, so 
they went to work to turn it over. The fish 
was three and a half feet long, and the birds 
_ were about as big as our sandpipers. So it was 
a hard thing to do. 
First they pushed against it with their beaks 
and breast, but it did not move. Then they 
went around the other side and scratched away 
a good deal of sand from under the fish, and 
went back and tried again to turn it over. Still 
it was too heavy to stir. 

