UTILITY OF BIRDS IN WOODLANDS. 95 



the Pacific coast, one climbing the tree and throwing the 

 acorns down to the other. 



eTays, Crows, and scjuirrels seem to have a mania for distrib- 

 uting and hiding things. I recall an old shellbark hi<;kory 

 by a farmhouse door, 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 with nuts or seeds, 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 Calomma scrutator, which it buried care- 

 fully beneath a tuft of grass. Keturning a few moments 

 later, the sable bird unearthed the brilliant insect, 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, and squirrels had been digging out 

 stores of acorns which probably had been buried there the 

 previous fall. The interrupted diggers had left six acorns 

 which they had dug from one hole ; others were partly 

 unearthed. 



It is said that s<|uirrels bite off the germ ends of the acorns 

 before burying them. This habit has never come under my 

 observation. 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 if by a squirrel, 

 and at just the right depth for planting. A man could not 

 have done it better. They were deeply covered with light 

 mould and i)ine 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 its feast been interrupted by the 

 Crows, or had all been at work together? How could the 

 Crow know that the acorns lay buried just there? Did he 

 remember that he planted them ? Had he seen the disturb- 

 ance of the pine needles, caused by the young sprout? Or 



