HARD FARE. 57 



wanted. They had foraged nearly all winter upon 

 my neighbor's corn-crib, and probably their mill- 

 stones were dull and needed replacing. They reached 

 the corn through the opening between the slats, and 

 were the envy of the crows, who watched them from 

 the near trees, but dared not venture up. The chick- 

 adee, which is an insectivorous bird, will eat corn in 

 winter. It will carry a kernel to the limb of a tree, 

 where, held beneath its tiny foot, it will peck out the 

 eye or chit of the corn the germinal part only. 

 I have also seen the woodpecker in winter eat the 

 berries of the poison ivy. Quails will eat the fruit 

 of the poison sumac, and grouse are killed with their 

 crops distended with the leaves of the laurel. Grouse 

 also eat the berries of the bitter-sweet. 



The general belief among country-people that the 

 jay hoards up nuts for winter use has probably some 

 foundation in fact, though one is at a loss to know 

 where he could place his stores so that they would not 

 be pilfered by the mice and the squirrels. An old 

 hunter told me he had seen jays secreting beechnuts 

 in a knot-hole in a tree. Probably a red squirrel saw 

 them too, and laughed behind his tail. One day, in 

 October, two friends of mine, out hunting, saw a 

 blue jay carrying off chestnuts to a spruce swamp. 

 He came and went with great secrecy and dispatch: 

 He had several hundred yards to fly each way, but 

 occupied only a few minutes each trip. The hunters 

 lay in wait to shoot him, but so quickly would he 

 seize his chestnut and be off, that he made more than 

 a dozen trips before they killed him. 



