MOUNTAIN TREES 



sidered good eating by many white set- 

 tlers when served with cream and sugar. 

 Its food value is exceptionally high and 

 the Indians all put on weight during the 

 acorn season. Some students claim the 

 rotund form of the California Indian is 

 due to the constant eating of acorns for 

 so many generations. 



The Indians, woodpeckers and squir- 

 rels are not the only heavy consumers of 

 acorns. The band-tailed pigeons, whose 

 hooting call at eventime is so familiar to 

 mountain travellers, eat acorns in large 

 numbers. They swallow them whole, 

 shell and all, relying upon the action of 

 their powerful digestive juices to reduce 

 them to absorbable form. The crops 

 are often enormously distended and 

 give the birds a peculiar stuffed appear- 

 ance. How they can swallow such 

 enormous acorns as those of the golden 

 oak which are sometimes almost an 

 inch in diameter and half again as long 

 is almost beyond comprehension, and 

 yet the amazing feat is performed. 



87 



