I may not be as pretty a bird as my red-headed cousin but I’m just as busy. My home is in the west among the pines on the mountains. I do not visit the east at all.

Of course I like insects and fruits just as my relations do, but I like best to eat acorns. You know, if I left the acorns on the trees and just got enough to eat at one time, after a while I would have a hard time finding any. They would drop off and roll away and get lost among the leaves and grasses. What would you do if you were I?

I have a very sharp bill, you see. So I can peck and peck at the tree until I have made a hole which will hold an acorn. Sometimes I fill my store house quite full in this way. You can see how they look in the picture. When I want to get at the meat in the acorn I drive the nut into a crack and split the shell. Then I have my breakfast easily enough.

Some of the other birds like acorns too—but I think they should find and store away their own and not try to take mine. I do not like to quarrel and so have many friends.

Then I have my nest to look after. I make it as my cousin does, by digging into a tree, first a passage way or hall—then a living-room. There are the four or five white eggs and there too soon are the little baby-birds to be taken care of. Now, have I not a great deal of work? Do you not think I am quite as busy as my cousin?