Evening star., 1948-10-25
This and That
by Charles r. Tracetcell

Dear Sir:
You made statement in your column TO
which take exception.
you said that squirrels viii bury milk
chocolate with almonds.
While have never fed squirrels this deli
cacy have often fed them nuts with broken
and unbroken shells.
THE nuts with unbroken shells are taken
away and buried but the ones with broken
shells-even If slightly cracked-will be either
eaten or taken to their nests in the trees
Il think they have some instinct that tells
ground or tree.
II would like to ask q question.
Simply, 1t Is this:
where do dead birds disappear to?
II presume that nature has provided some
quick way to dispose OF the remains, such Is
beetles fiies rats, ETC., but IL seems to me
that with all the birds around-especiaily
pigeons starlings and sparrows-I would see
few uneaten or partly eaten corpses In our
parks
I'm fact the only ones have seen are of
those birds that have been killed by accident.
I should think that the bird mortality around
some Of our public buildings would be high
and that more carcasses would be seen-or do
they have q bird Valhalla?
Very truly yours, r. 3. G."
Just to keep the record straight, let us
quote the sentence to which our correspondent
takes exception:
Sometimes. some one will give q squirrel
a piece OF milk chocolate, which the animal
Will not eat but always buries in the ground"
Nothing whatever was said about almonds.
1t Is always good idea. when taking OBJ
)ect1on TO be sure that one knows exactly
what the other party said or didn't say.
The best way is to have the statement before
one. and to copy 1t of exactly as written.
1t Is always too easy to try to remember
Too often one puts in statements all ones own
or leaves out something.
That squirrels do store away plain milk choc-
olate is fact, one first noted by this writer
at least IS years ago, when he proffered bite
to one OF the bushy tails in downtown park.
The creature Immediately scratched a hole in
the earth and buried the piece of candy.
Probably he had no idea of ever finding II
again, and if he did, he perhaps found moth
ing for his pains.
1t Is q question, how much Of what they
bury the squirrels find, anyway.
II they are at all like human beings, there
must be considerable waste. Every one
knows that walnuts, buried by the squirrels
often gerrninate and become walnut trees. eve
had one close by our house wall)
1t is d fact that very few dead birds are seen.
1t Is believed by some experts that the reason
is that dying birds 60 to a stream, to get a
drink to slake their mortal thirst, topple in,
and are swept away.
This is a poetic idea that may have more
truth than fiction in 1t.
It also is q fact that the bird body is very
small, after all, much Of it being nothing but
air.
1t also is true that most Of our birds weigh
but few ounces.
There can be little question that the forests
are the true home of all our birds, that they
love wooded places, and perhaps naturally
seek them when they feel death draw close.
Many birds however, die long before their
natural time, succumbing to hunger cold,
mans inventions, such as high structures, elec-
trio wires, etc. Some birds just fly into
the sides of buildings, making miscalculations,
just as some men do, In LIES journey.
Prowling animals destroy many bird bodies,
and some birds do the same. jay can make
Just a pile of feathers Of a smaller bird, and
o hawk can do the same to jay.
Our own belief is that birds about to die
fly to wooded places, and there breathe their
last, among the trees they love % well.