ecies of woodpecker is about the size of our common robin
or migratory thrush, and has a bill stout and sharp. The holes are
pecked for the purpose of storing away acorns or other nuts; they are
just large enough to admit the fruit, while the cup or larger end
remains outside. The nuts are forced in, so that it requires
considerable wrenching to dislodge them. In many instances the nuts are
so numerous, the stalk has the appearance of being studded with bullets.
This appearance is more pronounced in cases where the dead trunk of an
oak is used. There are some specimens of the latter now owned by the
American Museum of Natural History, which were originally sent to the
Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. They were placed in the
department contributed by the Pacific Railroad Company, and at that time
were regarded as some of the wonders of that newly explored region
through which the railroad was then penetrating. Some portions of the
surface of these logs are nearly entirely occupied by the holes with
acorns in them. The acorns are driven in very tightly in these examples;
much more so than in the cactus plants, as the oak is nearly round, and
the holes were pecked in solid though dead wood. One of the most
remarkable circumstances connected with this habit of the woodpecker is
the length of flight required and accomplished. At Mount Pizarro, where
such storehouses are found, the nearest oak trees are in the
Cordilleras, thirty miles distant; thus the birds are obliged to make a
journey of sixty miles to accomplish the storing of one acorn. At first
it seemed strange that a bird should spend so much labor to place those
bits of food, and so far away. De Saussure, a Swiss naturalist,
published in the _Bibliotheque Universelle_, of Geneva, entertaining
accounts of the Mexican Colaptes, a variety of the familiar "high hold,"
or golden winged woodpecker. They were seen to store acorns in the dead
stalks of the maguey (_Agave Americana_). Sumichrast, who accompanied
him to Central America, records the same facts. These travelers saw
great numbers of the woodpeckers in a region on the slope of a range of
volcanic mountains. There was little else of vegetation than the
_Agave_, whose barren, dead stems were studded with acorns placed there
by the woodpeckers.

The maguey throws up a stalk about fifteen feet in height yearly, which,
after flowering, grows stalky and brittle, and remains an unsightly
thing. The interior is pit