CONSPICUOUSLY .BLACK AND WHITE 877 
speech, emphasizing his conversation with ludicrous con- 
tortions of his body. 
But his uniqueness lies in his habit of storing up food 
for the winter, according to the advice of King Solomon, 
— food in this instance meaning the cartridge-like acorns 
of the live oaks. For each one of these he chisels out 
a hole which is so exact a fit that once the nut is in, 
man requires a tool to get it out. Round and round a 
tree he goes, filling it as full of these acorns as the law 
allows, and not sparing the limbs until it is honeycombed 
from top to bottom. In front of the residence of Dr. 
David Starr Jordan at Palo Alto, stands one of these 
trees, a living monument to the industry of J/elanerpes 
formicivorus bairdi. 
Like the redhead again, he is a valiant defender of his 
property, — be it acorns, eggs, or nestlings. He is uni- 
versally lord of all he surveys, fearing no bird of his own 
size and no quadruped of any size. He will fly furiously 
at a squirrel, and set upon a cat without the least 
hesitation, aiming directly for its eyes, provided puss is 
dangerously near his young. Though I have never found 
him quarrelsome or tyrannical, | have frequently noticed 
that smaller birds scatter when he alights in their 
vicinity. 
His nest is excavated in a live oak tree, usually on 
the under side of a large branch at some distance from 
the trunk, and from fifteen to twenty-five feet from the 
ground. Both male and female share in the labor of 
excavating the nest and in the incubation of the eggs. 
The cavity is usually about eighteen inches deep, five 
