112 THE CONDOR Vol. XXIII 
Pileated Woodpecker for no apparent reason, and I am constrained to the opin- 
ion that in such cases amusement has much, if not everything, to do with the 
act. So, too, it appears to be when the Hairy Woodpecker beats a tattoo on 
a dry resonant limb, a very pleasant musical sound even to human ears, with 
no apparent object in view save the fun of making a noise or perhaps occas- 
ionally signalling to some distant mate. We may note in passing that one 
result of this play habit, though probably not anticipated by the bird, is to 
keep the bill and the muscles connected with it in serviceable condition for 
the more serious labor of digging out larvae from the wood. 
The California Woodpecker is not the only one of our birds that has 
olimpsed the advantage of storing food against the time of need, as witness 
the impaling of mice, small birds, and insects on thorns or in the forks of 
branches by the shrike. In the case of this bird, however, the habit, not a 
frequent one I think, is more often than not unavailing, since the bird more 
often than not fails to profit by its foresight in any way, either forgetting al! 
about its stores, or, perhaps, wandering too far away to make it worth while 
to return to them. In any event the usefulness of the habit to the bird must be 
very small, and is, perhaps, to be viewed as a habit in the very early stages ot, 
its birth. In this connection one is tempted to ask why other woodpeckers, 
particularly the Red-head, which is a mast eater and in many of its habits 
strongly resembles the ‘‘Carpintero’’, have not hit upon the device of storing 
ood, as, in fact, some of them have while others have not. Thus Merriam* 
tells us that in the Adirondack region the Red-head winters or not according 
to whether it is or is not a beech-nut year. It would thus appear then that the 
Red-head of the Adirondack region has not acquired the habit of storing away 
beech nuts, and so far as my own observations about Washington go, as also 
those of other observers, the Red-head never stores away food of any kind 
but depends upon what it can obtain from day to day. When this fails it 
accepts the alternative of migration and departs for regions where supplies 
are more readily obtainable. Nevertheless the Red-head in certain localities 
does store away food, apparently habitually. 
Much to the point are the observations in central Indiana made and 
recorded by O. P. Hay in the Awk, 1887, p. 193, which show the Red-head as an 
active hoarder of food. They are so interesting that I quote them almost ver- 
batim. 
From the time the nuts [beech nuts] began to ripen, these birds appeared to be 
almost constantly on the wing passing from the beeches to some place of deposit. They 
have hidden away the nuts in almost every conceivable situation. Many have been 
placed in cavities in partially decayed trees; and the felling of an old beech is certain 
to prove a little feast for a bevy of children. Large handfulls have been taken from a 
single knot-hole. They are often found under a patch of the raised bark of trees, and 
single nuts have been driven into the cracks in bark. They have been thrust into the 
cracks in front gate-posts; and a favorite place of deposit is behind long slivers on 
fence posts. I have taken a good handfull from a single such crevice. . . . In a few 
cases grains of corn have been mixed with beech-nuts, and I have found also a few 
drupes apparently of the wild-cherry and a partially-eaten bitter-nut. The nuts may 
often be seen driven into the cracks-at the ends of railroad ties; and, on the other 
hand, the birds have often been seen on the roofs of houses, pounding nuts into the 
crevices between the shingles. In several instances I have observed that the space 
formed by a board springing away from a fence-post, has been nearly filled with nuts, 
*Remarks on Some of the Birds of Lewis County, Northern New York, Bull. Nuttall 
Orn. Club, July; 1878, p23. 
