240 
OMNIVOROUS BIRDS. 
butes this note to the Red-eyed Fly-catcher, certainly the 
same bird as that which exclusively takes up its summer 
residence with us. But it is impossible, with the most 
inventive imagination, to construe this strongly marked 
phrase out of the simple and almost invariable warble of 
our Fly-catcher. 
The Peto, besides insects, like the Jay, to which he is 
allied, chops up acorns, cracks nuts and hard and shelly 
seeds, to get at their contents, holding them meanwhile 
in his feet. He also searches and pecks decayed trees 
and their bark with considerable energy and indus- 
try in quest of larvae ; he often also enters into hollow 
trunks, prying after the same objects. In these holes they 
commonly roost in winter, and occupy the same secure 
situations, or the holes of the small Woodpecker, for de- 
positing and hatching their eggs, which takes place early 
in April or in May, according to the different parts of the 
Union they happen to inhabit. Sometimes they dig out 
a cavity for themselves with much labor, and always line 
the hollow with a variety of warm materials.*' Their 
eggs, about 6 to 8, are white, with a few small specks of 
brownish-red near the larger end. The whole family, 
young and old, may be seen hunting together throughout 
the summer and winter, and keeping up a continued 
mutual chatter. 
According to the observations of Wilson, it soon be- 
comes familiar in confinement, and readily makes its way 
out of a wicker cage by repeated blows at the twigs. It 
may be fed on hemp-seed, cherry-stones, apple-pippins, 
and hickory-nuts, broken and thrown in to it. In its 
natural state, like the rest of its vicious congeners, it 
sometimes destroys small birds by blows on the skull. f 
Audubon, Orn. Biog. i. p. 200. 
t Ibid. 
