INDUSTRIES OF ANIMALS. 



597 



Here are some of the more curious practices followed in such 

 cases. 



Sometimes it is a question of carrying off a round fruit which 

 offers no prominence to take hold of. The red-headed woodpecker 

 (Melanerpes eryilirocephalus) of North America is very greedy 

 with regard to apples, and feeds on them as well as on cherries. 

 It takes him a considerable time to consume an apple, and as he 

 is well aware of the danger he runs by prolonging his stay in an 

 orchard, he wishes to carry away his booty to a safe and sheltered 

 spot. He vigorously plunges his open beak into the apple ; the 

 two mandibles enter separately, and the fruit is well fixed ; he de- 

 taches it and flies away to the chosen retreat. 



The combination is complicated, and approaches more nearly 

 the methods employed by man, when the animal makes use of a 

 foreign body, as a tool or as a fulcrum, to achieve his objects. A 

 snake is very embarrassed when he has swallowed an entire egg 

 with the shell ; he can not digest it in that condition, and the mus- 

 cles of his stomach are not strong enough to break it. The snake 

 often finds himself in this condition, and is then accustomed either 



FIG. 3. THE LANICS STOCKING ITS LARDER. 



to strike his body against hard objects or to coil himself around 

 them until he has broken the envelope of the egg he contains. 



Neither the beak nor the claws of the shrike or butcher bird 

 (Lanius excubitor) are strong enough to enable him to tear his 

 prey easily. When he is not too driven by hunger he installs 

 himself in a comfortable fashion for this carving process, places 

 on a thorn or on a pointed branch the victim he has made, and 

 when it is thus fixed easily devours it in threads. 



