No. 4.] NATURE'S FORESTERS. 281 



trees the busy, garrulous jays pottered about among the 

 branches. Here on the Atlantic coast squirrels and jays, 

 though of different species, have for ages buried their food 

 in the same way. 



In the autumn of 1897 the mast crop was light in some 

 sections of eastern Massachusetts, but here and there an oak 

 tree was found which bore a good crop. Such trees were 

 soon discovered by the jays and squirrels, several of which 

 might be seen gathering the acorns from each tree. The 

 ground squirrels work in pairs, as do the squirrels of the 

 Pacific coast, one climbing the tree and throwing down the 

 acorns to the other. 



The jays alight in the tree top, each jay breaking off an 

 acorn with his feet, sometimes hammering it open with his 

 beak and eating it on the spot, or carrying it off to some 

 hiding place ; sometimes dropping it from the tree or while 

 flying, apparently for no purpose except to hear it strike the 

 earth. 



Have you ever noticed what a mania jays, crows and 

 squirrels have for distributing and hiding things? One 

 whose childhood has been spent in the country will recall an 

 old shellbark hickory by the cottage door, with the crevices . 

 of its ragged bark ornamented with walnuts, tucked in here 

 and there all over the trunk. Any one watching the jays 

 and squirrels in the fall will find them filling crevices, drop- 

 ping nuts, acorns, corn and other things into cavities and 

 hollows in the trees, or burying them in the leaf-mould on 

 the ground. 



I once watched a crow killing a large, brightly colored 

 beetle, probably Calosoma scrutator, which he carefully 

 buried beneath a tuft of grass. Returning a few moments 

 later he unearthed the creature, carried it away and buried 

 it in another place. In a pine wood in Medford, on April 

 16, 1897, several crows flew from the ground. Here under 

 the pines an interrupted feast was found. Crows, jays or 

 squirrels had been digging out stores of acorns which had 

 probably been buried there the previous fall. The inter- 

 rupted diggers had left six acorns dug from one hole. 

 Others were partly unearthed. 



It is said that squirrels bite off the germ ends of the 



