THE BEECHNUT, 53 



it affords food for many kinds of birds, such as the wild 

 turkey, partridge or grouse, and especially the pigeon, 

 and immense flocks of these collect in the beech forests 

 in autumn to feed upon the nuts. Deer are yery fond 

 of these nuts, and so are all of the squirrel family, and 

 the little ground squirrel or chipmunk, Tamias striatum, 

 of our Northern States, gives us a good practical lesson 

 in the way of preserving the nuts over winter. These 

 little rodents pack away the nuts in small pockets in 

 their burrows and from two to three feet below the sur- 

 face, where they are protected from excessive moisture 

 and any considerable change of temperature. The chip- 

 munk always stores the nuts in the ground, and not in 

 hollow logs, as is sometimes asserted. The deer-mouse 

 {Ilesperomys Uucopus), however, does select such places 

 for putting away his winter's supply, but more fre- 

 quently he chooses a hollow in the stem of some old tree, 

 and several feet from the ground. Unlike the chip- 

 munk, this mouse cleans the shells from the kernels, 

 storing only the latter, and I have often found a quart 

 or more when cutting down trees in Winter. These ker- 

 nels are usually so clean, bright, and free from odor, 

 that it is to- be feared the finder always confiscates them 

 for his own use. 



As the beechnut contains considerable oil, many 

 schemes have been set on foot, in European countries, 

 for its extraction and use as a salad oil. Early in the 

 last century (1721) Aaron Hill, an English poet, pro- 

 posed to pay off the national debt from the profits to be 

 derived from the manufacture of beechnut oil ; but his 

 scheme fell through, like many others of its kind. It is 

 also stated that Henry Fielding, so well known by his 

 delightful stories of English society, once speculated 

 rather largely on the manufacture of beechnut oil. In 

 France, however, beechnut oil was formerly made in 

 considerable quantities, and used in cooking fish and as 



