Cambridge, Mass.
1910
July 18
(No 2)
[July 18, 1910]

extracted from some of them a quantity of food
which I could see him swallow although I could not 
make out first what it was. But after he had 
gone I examined the holes, which averaged an inch
or more in depth, finding that most of them
contained living ants that had fallen in and were
unable to climb up the crumbling sides. Evidently
the bird dug the holes not so much to get at the
ants (I did not see him get any of them immediately
and he invariably moved on and began a fresh hole
just after completing one) as to entrap them. They
were continually running about over the surface of the
flags in numbers but he paid no attention whatever
to those thus engaged. When he revisited the holes
he did not once throw out more earth but simply
thrust his bill down slowly into them swallowing visably
as he removed it.