gh to drop his savings into a bank
with the conscience of an ill-regulated automatic machine, which takes
everything and gives nothing back. If he had really needed the almonds,
they would have been put in an accessible spot. Though this perhaps is a
scientific view, I must acknowledge that we were grateful to the birds
who stored them for us, and, by making fools of themselves, gave us the
opportunity of gathering, if not grapes from thistles, at least almonds
from oaks.

Although I do not remember having seen any instances in California of
the woodpecker which bores holes in trees and then neatly fits an acorn
in, I have serious doubts as to the likelihood of the explanation
commonly given. It is said the woodpeckers do it to encourage
grubs--that they thus make a kind of grub farm. If so, why do they leave
these acorns in? They do not perpetually renew them. Besides, there is
no more need for them to trouble about the future than there is for the
jays who made our almond stores. If I may venture to suggest an
explanation--to make a guess, perhaps a wild one, at this acorn
mystery--is it altogether impossible that the woodpeckers have imitated
the jays? I have noticed that the jays get careless as to the size or
accessibility of the hole they drop provisions into--indeed they will
place them sometimes in little more than a rugosity or wrinkle of the
bark. I have often found odd almonds on an oak tree which were only laid
on the branch. The woodpeckers have probably mimicked the jays, and in
so doing have naturally endeavoured to make the holes they had
themselves drilled for other purposes serve them the same turn that the
bigger holes did the jays. They have joined their work with play. It
must be remembered that in a climate like California, where birds find
it very easy to make a living all the year round, they are likely to
have much time at their disposal, which would be occupied in a colder,
less fruitful district. I should not be surprised to learn that there
were many odd examples of useless instincts still surviving on the
Pacific slope; for doubtless many of its birds found their way there
from the east over the Rockies and Sierra Nevada.

IN CORSICA

Once, no doubt, Corsica was a savage, untamed, untrimmed kind of
country, and a man's life was little safer than it is to-day in the
neighbouring island of Sardinia. There were brigands and bandits and
families engaged in the private warfare of the v