The California Woodpecker 
acorn is driven in so 
firmly that nothing short 
of a pick-ax or decay 
will loosen it. 
The freshman may 
be late to class, but he 
is witnessing one of the 
strangest as well as most 
characteristic spectacles 
in California’s varied 
pageant. The bird itself 
is worth more than a 
passing glance. True 
native son is Balano- 
sphyra, handsome, saucy, 
debonaire, as faultless in 
dress as a Spanish fan- 
danguero, as independ¬ 
ent in speech as a Kear¬ 
ney Street sand-lotter, 
as lofty and preoccupied 
in manner as a Junior 
“frat,” and as indus¬ 
trious, withal, as a 
heathen Chinee. The 
Woodpecker is our 
native aristocrat. He is 
unruffled by the opera¬ 
tions of the human plebs 
in whatever disguise. 
Digger Indians, Don 
Joses, or Doctors of 
Philosophy are all the 
same to him. Wigwams, haciendas, or university halls, what matter 
such frivolities, if only one may go calmly on with the main business of 
life, which is indubitably the hoarding of acorns. 
The California Woodpecker is preeminently a sociable bird,—sociable 
and clannish. Other woodpeckers tend to become solitary, the larvae- 
hunting species especially so, because of the comparative scarcity of 
their prey. But the California Woodpecker is chiefly dependent upon 
mast, and this, if not unfailing, is at least abundant when it is to be had 
at all. Now abundance of food begets gregariousness, of which the 
Taken in the San Jacinto Mts. 
A SCULPTURED SHAFT 
Photo by the Author 
1025 
