UTILITY OF BIRDS IN WOODLANDS. 97 
succession of trees has long been considered by farmers to 
be the rule. In other words, in some way there often comes 
rotation of crops when wood lots are cut off. This is be- 
lieved by some people to be due to the springing up of seed 
which has been buried in the ground for many years. When 
an oak wood springs up where a pine wood has been cut 
away, there is no doubt that it has sprung from seed in the 
ground; probably, however, it has not come from seed which 
has been buried for many years, but from seed sown by 
birds and squirrels within a few years, and which has been 
given a new lease of life by the sun’s rays let in by the 
removal of the dense foliage from above. All through the 
autumn months, when nuts and acorns are plentiful, Jays, 
Crows, and squirrels are gathering and storing away the seed 
among the pines, where they resort for shelter. 
Thousands of Crows will roost in a pine wood for months 
during the winter, when the leaves are off the deciduous 
trees. The pines then offer the best hiding places for all 
woodland creatures. In some of the large Crow roosts among 
the pines extensive deposits of various seeds and other mate- 
rial ejected by Crows are found. When a pine wood is sur- 
rounded by oak and nut trees, when squirrels and Jays 
are plentiful, and the trees bear well, quantities of acorns 
and nuts will be carried into the pine wood by these crea- 
tures and buried beneath the dead “needles” or hidden away 
in crevices. Many of these nuts and acorns are dug up 
during the winter months, especially by the red squirrel, 
but many others are never found. 
Note an opening in the pines made by cutting away a few 
trees. Here young oaks spring up, and we find oaks and 
walnuts in such openings quite as often as we find pines. 
Examine the ground under the pines in summer, and you 
may find many little oak, walnut, and maple trees coming 
up from beneath the pine needles, and you will also find 
young pines here and there. All these young trees soon die 
in the dense shade of the larger pines.! But let the pine 
1 If the lot is not favorably situated, if the woods are very dense, if birds and 
squirrels are not plentiful, and, above all, if the crop of mast has been light the 
year before, there may be no young walnuts and oaks springing up. 
