114 THE CONDOR Vol. XXIV 
upon the stored nuts. But I am wandering from the main point, namely, that of 
why the poor birds should not recognize the folly of picking up stones, and put- 
ting them away for food at the time the folly is committed. 
Saying nothing about their faulty observation as to the difference in weight, 
shape, color, ete., between acorns and pebbles, even the most acorn-resembling 
ones, I raise this further question on the strength of my own observations: Is it 
likely that pebble-storing birds never try to eat the pebbles during the very 
time that they are gathering and storing them? The fact that the birds | saw 
storing acorns last fall were at the same time feeding on the nuts makes me 
strongly but sadly suspicious that pebble-storers would also try simultaneously 
to feed on their gatherings and would go right on storing them for future use 
im spite of their demonstrated uselessness. 
I fear we must conclude that while these birds know enough about their own 
welfare not only to ask for acorns, but, under normal conditions, to give them- 
selves acorns, under conditions more or less abnormal, they ask for acorns but 
vive Gemeclvcs stones. 
At any rate, whatever the detailed ‘tan oretationt we put upon these appar- 
ently not very rare cases of pebble storing, we can not, so far as 1 can see, avoid 
recognizing in them serious imperfection in the pda tiveness of the food storie 
habit. ‘his is the point where it should be mentioned that the birds sometimes 
store other nuts than acorns. Mr. Robertson, mentioned as one of my corre- 
spondents, tells of the storage of English walnuts at Buena Park, California; and 
Mr. Gignoux reports, as indicated by the title of his article already quoted, the 
storing of almonds in the region of Marysville, California. 
This turning of the birds from their ancestral nut crop to other kinds of 
nuts entirely new to them, might be put to their credit as evidence olf their re- 
sourcetulness in finding new kinds of food. It should be said, however, that as 
yet evidence is lacking that the newly found nuts are actually used as food, 
while in the walnut instance reported by Mr. Robertson the evidence seems con- 
clusive that they were not so used. The birds disappeared from the scene of their 
activities soon after the storing was done, Mr. Robertson says, and never re- 
turned se far as he knew, the walnuts me peal ‘eaten by ants and other 
insects. ’ ! Ss 
Another conclusion previously reached about the storing business was 
summed up thus: ‘‘Large numbers of acorns are sometimes stored, the use of 
which is so long delayed that the acorns become wholly or largely unfit for food, 
and this where the bird population seems normal.’’ 
This conclusion has been strengthened not only by finding on my last visit 
the same old spoiled acorns described in ‘‘storage-tree A’’ of my former commun- 
ication, but by finding several other trees not seen before, containing rotten and 
half-rotten nuts. This was particularly striking for a tree found at Pine Hill, 
fifteen miles to the north of Cuyamaca. Details of the additional instances of 
this sort we need not linger on here, so similar are they to what was set forth on 
the point in my earlier publication. Only this deserves to be added: Later ob- 
servations indicate more loss of acorns than I previously recognized from their 
being covered up and fused into the holes by the pitch of pine storage-trees. The 
aggregate of loss from this cause is far from insignificant, so it seems. 
But a long way the most interesting addition to what is known about bad 
business by woodpeckers in food storing comes from Mr. Peck’s communication 
