THE OOLOGIST. 



157 



The White-bellied Nuthatch. 

 Taken fkoji Flokknop: A. INIekkiam's 



"BiKDS THHOUGH AN Ol'EKA-CiLASS." 



Crossbills, Snow Buntings, Blue 

 Jays, Pine Finches, Pine Grosbeaks, 

 Goldfinches, and sometimes other birds 

 visit us here at irregular intervals dur- 

 ing the winter, but there are four little 

 friends that never desert us, no matter 

 how long the winter lasts. They form 

 a novel quartette, for the Chickadee 

 whistles the air, the Nuthatch sings his 

 meagre alto through his nose, and the 

 two Woodj)eckers — the Hairy and 

 Downy — beat their drums as if deter- 

 minetl to drown the other parts. But 

 they arc a merry band, with all their 

 oddities, and wander aliout giving con- 

 certs wherever they go, till the woods 

 ai'e alive again, and we forget that we 

 hav^ ever missed the summer Ijirds. 



When the drums get too much absor- 

 bed in their tree trunks, the alto and 

 air go serenading l)y tiiemselves, and 

 who knows what gossip tliej' indulge in 

 ixbout the grave magicians' daj' dreams, 

 or how gayly they s^vear to stand Ijy 

 each other and never be put down ^)J 

 these drums! 



They are old i-hums and vi'ork to- 

 gether as happily as Mr. and Mrs. 

 Sjjratt, the Chickadee Avhistling his 

 merr^' chick-a-ilee-dee, dee, dee, as he 

 clings to a twig in the tree (op, and the 

 Nuthatch answering back with a jolly 

 little yank, yank, yank, as he hangs, 

 head down, on the side of a tree trunk. 

 What a comic tigure he makes there! 



Trying to get a view of you, he 

 throws his head back and stretches 

 himself away from the tree till you 

 wonder he does not fall off. His black 

 cap and slate-bine coat are almost hid- 

 den, he raises liis white throat and 

 breast np so high. 



"Devil-down-head" he is called from 

 this habit of walking down the trees, 

 .since instead of walking straight down 

 backwards, as the Woodpeckers do. 



he prefers to obey the old adage and 

 "follow his nose." A lady forgetting 

 liis name once aptly described him to 

 me as "that little upside-down bird," 

 for he will run along the under side of 

 a branch with as much coolness as a fly 

 would cross the ceiling. 



One of his popular names is "Sap- 

 sucker," for our Nuthatch has a sweet 

 tooth, and Avhen the farmers tap the 

 trees in spring he "happens round" at 

 the sugar bush to see what sort of 

 maple .syrup^ they are to have. He 

 tests it well, taking a sip at "the calf" 

 where it oc^zes out from the gashing of 

 the axe, tasting it as it dries along the 

 spile, and finally on the rim of the 

 buckets. 



But his most interesting name is — 

 Nuthatch! How does he come by itv 

 That seems a riddle. Some cold 

 November day put on a pair of thick 

 boots and go to visit the beeches. 

 There in their tops are the Nuthatches, 

 for they have deserted the tree trunks 

 for a frolic. They are beech-nutting! 

 And that with as much zest as a partj' 

 of school children starting out with 

 l)askets and pails on a holiday. Watch 

 them now! Wliat clumsy work they 

 make of it, trying to cling to the beech- 

 nut l)urr, and get the nuts out at the 

 same time. It's a pity the Chickadee 

 can't give them a few lessons! They 

 might better have kept to their tree 

 trunks. But they persist, and after 

 tumbling off from several burrs, finally 

 snatch out a nut and fly off with it as 

 cahnly as if they had been dancing 

 about among the twigs all their days. 

 AAvay they go till they come to a maple 

 or some other rough-barked tree, when 

 tiiey stick the nut^in between the ridges 

 of the bai"k, hammering it down, and 

 then, when it is so tightly wedged that 

 the slippery shell cannot get away from 

 them, by a few sharp blows they hatdi 

 the nut from the tree! 



Through my glass I watched a num- 

 ber of them this fall, and they all 



