198 Birds Every Child Should Know 
roofs everywhere are popular tapping places. 
Certain dry, dead, seasoned limbs of hardwood 
trees resound better than others and a wood- 
pecker in love is sure to find out the best one in 
the spring when he beats a rolling tattoo in the 
hope of charming his best beloved. He has no 
need to sing, which is why he doesn’t. 
Fence posts are the red-head’s favourite rest- 
ing places. From these he will make sudden 
sallies in mid-air, like a fly-catcher, after a pass- 
ing insect; then return to his post. 
You remember that the blue jay has the 
thrifty habit of storing nuts for the proverbial 
rainy day, and that the shrike hangs up his 
meat to cure on a thorn tree like a butcher. 
Red-headed woodpeckers, who are especially 
fond of beechnuts, acorns and grasshoppers, 
hide them away, squirrel fashion, in tree cavi- 
ties, in fence holes, crevices in old barns, be- 
tween shingles on the roof, behind bulging 
boards, in the ends of railroad ties, in all sorts 
of queer places, to feast upon them in winter 
when the land is lean. Who knows whether 
other woodpeckers have hoarding places? The 
sapsucker, the hairy and the downy wood- 
peckers also like beechnuts ; the flicker prefers 
acoms; but do they store them for winter use? 
The red-head’s thrifty habit was only recently 
discovered: has it been only recently acquired? 
It must be simpler to store the summer’s sur- 
