They were taking an early breakfast
before going to their regular harvest-work. While I was busy with my own
breakfast I heard the thudding fall of two or three heavy cones from a
Yellow Pine near me. I stole noiselessly forward within about twenty
feet of the base of it to observe. In a few moments down came the
Douglas. The breakfast-burs he had cut off had rolled on the gently
sloping ground into a clump of ceanothus bushes, but he seemed to know
exactly where they were, for he found them at once, apparently without
searching for them. They were more than twice as heavy as himself, but
after turning them into the right position for getting a good hold with
his long sickle-teeth he managed to drag them up to the foot of the tree
from which he had cut them, moving backward. Then seating himself
comfortably, he held them on end, bottom up, and demolished them at his
ease. A good deal of nibbling had to be done before he got anything to
eat, because the lower scales are barren, but when he had patiently
worked his way up to the fertile ones he found two sweet nuts at the
base of each, shaped like trimmed hams, and spotted purple like birds'
eggs.
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