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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 orna- 

 mented 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, dropping 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 Ccdosoma scrutator, which he carefully buried beneath a 

 tuft of grass. Returning a few moments later he unearthed the 

 creature, carried it away and bulled it in another place. In a pine 

 wood in Medford, on April 16, 1<S97, 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 in- 

 terrupted 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 acorns be- 

 fore burying them. This habit has never come under my observa- 

 tion. These acorns not only had their germ ends intact, but seven 

 of them had sprouted. One had sent the tap root down four 

 inches into the mould. They had been carefully set with the points 

 downward, as nicely as it could have been done by a man. They 

 were deeply covered with light mould and pine needles. Some of 

 the digging looked like the work of squirrels, but marks on some 

 of the acorns were apparently made by the beak of a bird. A 

 gray squirrel was seen near by. Had his feast been interrupted 

 by the crows or had all been at work together? How does the 

 crow know that the acorns lie buried just there? Does he remem- 

 ber that he planted them? Does he find them by scent? Has he 

 seen the disturbance of the pine needles, caused by the young 

 sprout? Or has he watched the squirrel, and descended to rob it 

 of its stores? Who is wise enough to interpret the workings of a 

 crow's mind? Who can tell how far its perceptive faculties will 

 serve, or mark the boundary between instinct and reason ? You 



