THE AMERICAN RABBIT.— Continued from page 26. 
the foot of a grave. While reading 
the inscription on the tombstone we 
were startled by a quick rush from the 
bush, and discovering the nest, in 
which there were five tiny young with 
wide open eyes, we took them up ten- 
derly and carried them home. We 
too, were young then. Admonished 
that we had cruelly deprived a mother 
of her offspring, and that our duty was 
to return them to her, we unwillingly 
obeyed, and put them back in the little 
cavern. They huddled together once 
more and no doubt were soon welcomed 
by their parents. 
A frosty Saturday morning, a light 
snow covering the ground, a common 
cur dog, Cottontail tracks, and a small, 
happy boy. Do you not see yourself 
as in a vision? 
THIRTY MILES FOR AN ACORN. 
Far away I hear a drumming — 
Tap, tap, tap! 
Can the Woodpecker be coming 
After sap ? 
OWN in Mexico there lives 
a Woodpecker who stores 
his nuts and acorns in 
the hollow stalks of the 
yuccas and magueys. 
These hollow stalks are separated by 
joints into several cavities, and the 
sagacious bird has somehow found this 
out, and bores a hole at the upper end 
of each joint and another at the lower, 
through which to extract the acorns 
when wanted. Then it fills up the 
stalks solidly and leaves its stores there 
until needed, safe from the depreda- 
tions of any thievish bird or four- 
footed animal. 
The first place in which this curious 
habit was observed was on a hill in 
the midst of a desert. The hill was 
covered with yuccas and magueys, but 
the nearest oak trees were thirty miles 
away, and so it was calculated, these 
industrious birds had to make a flight 
of sixty miles for each acorn stowed 
thus in the stalks! 
An observer of birds remarks : 
" There are several strange features to 
be noticed in these facts: the provident 
instinct which prompts this bird to lay 
by stores of provisions for the winter, 
the great distance traversed to collect 
a kind of food so unusual for its race, 
and its seeking in a place so remote 
from its natural abode a storehouse so 
remarkable." 
alone teach, or have 
reason taught these 
Can instinct 
experience and 
birds that, far better than the bark of 
trees or crevices in rocks or any other 
hiding place are these hidden cavities 
they make for themselves with the 
hollow stems of distant plants? 
This we cannot answer. But we do 
know that one of the most remarkable 
birds in our country is this California 
Woodpecker, and that he is well en- 
titled to his Mexican name of el car- 
pintero — the carpenter bird. — Ex- 
change. 
