210 



STORIES OF BIRD LIFE 



as some have suggested, the supply of food may be limited. 

 Having this in mind I began to suspect that our fine bird 

 was getting his daily food from some dead limbs of the 



locust trees 



in 



which he daily 

 busied himself . He 

 dug long ditches 

 into the rotten 

 wood and as a re- 

 sult quantities of 

 chips lay on the 

 ground beneath, as 

 evidence of his in- 

 dustry. It must 

 be insect life of 

 some kind that he 

 is looking for, I 

 often thought, and 

 yet on more than 

 one occasion I de- 

 tected him in the 

 act of eating acorns. One morning after a strong wind 

 had been blowing I found that a large dead limb had 

 fallen across my path. It was one of those on which the 

 woodpecker had spent much time. So much decayed was 

 it that in falling it had broken into several pieces, thus dis- 



