THE NUTHATCH. 65 



says, that tlie less spotted woodpecker does the same. This 

 noise may be heard a furlong or more.* 



Now is the only time to ascertain the short- winged 

 summer birds : for, when the leaf is out, there is no makmg 



and I imagine that as the cherries ripen they migrate from garden to garden in 

 pursuit of them. I am told that near London they remain late enough to 

 attack the elder-berries, of which the fruit-eating warblers are very fond, but 

 in Yorkshire they do not even wait for the later cherries. The number of 

 these visitants depends upon the crop of early cheriies. This yeai the crop 

 having nearly failed, I saw but two of them, which appeared on the 15th of 

 July, and were not seen after the 17th. The blackcap remains eating the 

 currants and honeysuckle berries; they are both very fond in confinement of 

 ripe pears, and I believe, in the south of England, they peck some of them 

 before their departure. — W. H. 



* The nuthatch, sitta europcBa, Linn, is the only species of the genui 

 inhabiting Europe ; in this country it appears confined to England, never 

 having been traced further north than Northumberland. The following 

 animated sketch, a good deal in the style of our author, I have extracted 

 from Loudon's Journal of Natural History^ as giving a correct idea of the 

 manners of this curious species : — " I had never seen the little bird called 

 the nuthatch, when one day, whilst I was expecting the transit of some 

 wood-pigeons under a birch-tree, with my gun in my hand, I observed a little 

 ash-coloured bird squat himself on one of the large lateral trunks over my 

 head, and after some observation, begin to tap loudly, or rather solidly, upon 

 the wood, and then proceed round and round the brancli, it being clearly the 

 same thing to him whether his nadir or zenith were uppermost. I shot, and 

 the bird fell ; there was a lofty hedge between us, and when I got over, he had 

 removed himself. It was some time before 1 secured him ; and I mention 

 this, because the manner in which he eluded me was characteristic of his 

 cunning. He concealed himself in holes at the bottom of a ditch, so long aa 

 he heard the noise of motion ; and when all was still, he would scud out and 

 attempt to escape. A wing was broken, and I at length got hold of him. He 

 proved small, but very fierce, and his bite would have made a child cry out. 

 The elbow joint of his wing being thoroughly shattered, and finding that he 

 had no other wound, I cut off the dangling limb, and put him into a large cage 

 with a common lark. The wound did not in the least diminish his acti\nty, 

 n,)r yet his pugnacity, for he instantly began to investigate all means of escape; 

 he tried the bores, then tapped the woodwork of the cage, and produced a 

 knocking sound which made the room re-echo; but after finding his effoits 

 vain, he then turned upon the lark, ran under him with his gaping beak to 

 bite, and effectually alarmed his far more gentle and elegant antagonist. 

 Compelled to separate them, the nuthatch — for this bird I discovered him to 

 be, by turning over the leaves of an Ornithologia — was put into a smaller cage 

 of plain oak wood and wire. Here he remained all night, and the next morn- 

 ing his knocking, or tapping with his beak, was the first sound I heard, though 

 sleeping in an apaitment divided from the other by a landing-place. He had 

 food given to him, minced chicken and bread crumbs, and water. He ate and 

 drank with a mos )erfect impudence, and the momcu-i Lo Lad satisfied himself 



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