302 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



situations as would enable me to watcli the actions of 

 these birds. In confinement the young become very 

 tame and from their activity and quaintness in every 

 movement are most engaging pets, but sadly destructive 

 to any woodwork within their reach. If constantly 

 supplied with fresh bark, they never tire of searching 

 each corner and crevice for insect food, clinging to it 

 in every imaginable attitude with their strong claws, 

 whilst beating all the wliile with their beaks a very 

 '^devil's tattoo," unpleasantly suggestive, in its per- 

 sistent monotony, of the busiest moments of a coffin- 

 maker. The following very interesting particulars 

 respecting a nest of this species were communicated 

 to me by Mr. Samuel Blyth, who watched the progress 

 of the work, and satisfied himself by measurements, 

 of the arduous task, not only begun but completed 

 by these ingenious little architects. In the spring 

 of 1865, a pair of nuthatches selected, for nesting 

 purposes, the bole of a beech tree at Framingham, 

 which had a cleft, on one side, nearly a foot and 

 a-half in length. This opening, being too large and 

 exposed, the birds proceeded to fill up (leaving only 

 a hole big enough for themselves to pass in and out) 

 with clay collected from the edge of a pond about 

 one hundred and fifty yards off. In the first instance 

 the whole structure was pulled down by a lad 

 when nearly completed; but, nothing daunted, the 

 nuthatches began again and, completing their task, 

 eventually hatched and brought off their young. On 

 subsequent examination, the mud-works, thus labo- 

 riously constructed, were found so hard that only 

 a mallet and chisel could make any impression on them, 

 and they measured exactly 16 inches in length, 3^ inches 

 in width, and 2^ inches in de^^th. A specimen, perfectly 

 white, was killed at Lyng, near Reepham, in December, 

 1846, a very unusual and beautiful variety. 



