120 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 
round the trunk, with his tail pressed in against the tree 
to sustain him (like the pointed stick trailing behind a 
Pennsylvania wagon), peering into every crevice, poking 
his bill into all the knot-holes and scars where limbs have 
been shivered off, running out on each branch, here picking 
up half a dozen eggs that only a bird’s sharp eye could 
find, there transfixing with his pointed tongue some dor- 
mant beetle laid away on his bark shelf, or tearing open the 
pupa-case of some unlucky young moth, snugly dreaming 
of a successful début in May. This creeper is always to 
be found in our winter woods and orchards, yet is nowhere 
abundant; its life is a solitary one, and, although not shy, 
it is so restlessly active as easily to elude the eye. If, in 
the early spring, you have the rare fortune to hear its song, 
regard the privilege as precious. 
Another creeping bird, almost always moving head down- 
ward, more often seen in midwinter, because then he ap- 
proaches civilized life, while in summer he retires to the 
remote woods to rear his brood, is the familiar nuthatch, 
whose pecnhar nee-nee-nee—the most indifferent, don’t- 
care-a-bit utterance in the world—is heard from every other 
tree-trunk. Like the brown creeper, the nuthatches seek 
their food on the boles of trees, examining every part by a 
spiral survey—a sort of triangulation—and are not content 
