1883-84-] Edinburgh Naturalists Field Clnb. 1S5 



to see them when I Avished ; while on the eastern side of the 

 town they were seldom met with. Of late years, however, I am 

 happy to say they have become far more common in Warwick- 

 shire, and on my annual visit there I invariably notice them. AVhen 

 at school I learnt to imitate the singular call-note of the I^uthatch 

 so exactly, that I could often induce it to answer me. 



The food of the Nuthatch consists of nuts and filberts, cater- 

 pillars, insects, berries, hard seeds, and beech-nuts. Bewick men- 

 tions it as also fond of picking bones ; and a lady friend in Hert- 

 fordshire Avho is in the habit of throwing Indian corn down for 

 her poultry, informs me that she has frecjuent and welcome visits 

 from a iSTuthatch, Avhich fixes the grains of INIaize in the rough 

 bark of a tree and pecks them to pieces. In the autumn nuts form 

 the principal and most attractive food of the Nuthatch, and the 

 method of extracting the kernel is at once quite unique and interest- 

 ing. I was always careful in England to have some nuts left on 

 my bushes for the especial use of the Nuthatch, and never tired of 

 noticing his proceedings. The nut was carried by the bird to the 

 stem of a tree having rough bark, and inserted, with the point of 

 the nut outwards, in a fissure of the bark. The bird would then creep 

 round the nut with his peculiar short jumps till he had a good 

 position for the attack, usually with his head downwards. I think 

 it would be in vain for it to attempt to break a nut by the mere 

 use of the cervical sinews ; but malting his neck rigid and in a 

 line with his body, with the beak at right angles, and the sharp 

 claws as a fulcrum, the bird for the time assumes the form of a 

 small pick or hammer, and pegs away with all his weight and might 

 at the pointed end of the nut, Avhere the shell is thinnest, and the 

 noise of this pretty hammer I have heard at a considerable distance. 

 It has been stated that the bird can in this way penetrate the hardest 

 nut, but this is not strictly true, for I have more than once seen 

 it fail, and well remember, as a boy, carrying one of these failures 

 for some time in my pocket, with numerous marks of the bird's 

 bill on the pointed end. I never knew it break a nut which con- 

 tained no kernel, and I suppose the hoUowness of the sound would 

 at once indicate that its labour would be unproductive. I once saw 

 the rough bark of an Elm near some Beeches entirely studded in every 

 crevice with the shells of l)eech-nuts, evidently the work of the Nut- 

 hatch. The late Rev. W. T. Bree of Allesley records an instance of 

 one of these birds being caught in a common brick-trap ; and so per- 

 sistent was it in hammering the bricks in its eff'orts to escape, that 

 when found the point of its bill was quite worn away. I also heard 

 of one being placed in an ordinary cage, which kept up a continuous 

 attack on the woodwork for hours, till some one remarked that he 

 feared he was making his coffin, Avhich proved only too true, as in 

 the morning the poor bird was found dead in the cage. But though 



