1SS7.J Hay, the Red-headed Woodpecker a Hoarder. IOC 



hole. They are often found under a patch of the raised bark of 

 trees, and single nuts have been driven into the cracks in bark. 

 They have been thrust into the cracks in front gate-posts : and 

 a favorite place of deposit is behind long slivers on fence-posts. 

 I have taken a good handbill from a single such crevice. That 

 sharpest of all observers, the small boy, early discovered the 

 location of these treasures. In a few cases grains of corn have 

 been mixed with beech-nuts, and I have found also a few drupes 

 apparently of the wild-cherry and a partially-eaten bitter-nur. 

 The nuts may often be seen driven into the cracks at the ends of 

 railroad ties ; and, on the other hand, the birds have often been 

 seen on the roofs of houses, pounding nuts into the crevices be- 

 tween the shingles. In several instances I have observed that the 

 space formed by a board springing away from a fence-post, has 

 been nearly filled with nuts, and afterwards pieces of bark and 

 wood have been brought and driven down over the nuts as if to 

 hide them from poachers. These pieces of bark are sometimes 

 an inch or more square and half an inch thick anil driven in with 

 such force that it is difficult to get them out. In one case the 

 nuts were covered over with a layer of empty involucres. 



Usually the nuts are still covered with the hulls ; but here and 

 there, where the crevice is very narrow, these have been taken 

 oil' and pieces of the kernels have been thrust in. An examina- 

 tion recently of some of these cacJies showed that the nuts were 

 being attacked by animals of some kind. The Red-heads are 

 frequently seen in the vicinity of these stores and they sometimes 

 manifest great impatience at the presence of other birds. That 

 other birds and animals of any kind disturb these caches I do 

 not know, but it is quite probable that they do. 



Since it might be questioned whether or not the Woodpeckers 

 use for food the nuts thus stored up, I concluded to apply a test 

 that would probably decide the matter. To-day (Jan. 7.), after 

 the prevalance for sometime of severe weather, I shot two Red- 

 heads and made an examination of the contents of their alimen- 

 tary canal. In the gizzards of both were found considerable 

 quantities of the more or less broken kernels of what appeared 

 to the unaided eve to be beech-nuts. I then made microscopic 

 sections of the pieces and compared them with similar sections 

 of beech-nuts, and the two sets of sections were identical. The 

 Red-headed Woodpecker certainly eats beech-nuts. In the giz- 



