HARD FARE 51 



uncovered by the thaw, but they found little except 

 cinders for their gizzards, which, maybe, was what 

 they wanted. They had foraged nearly all winter 

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

 millstones 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 chickadee, 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 wood- 

 pecker 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 ber- 

 ries 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 knothole 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 



