104 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
soft green woods as a peculiarly peaceful caress- 
ing note, and his soft yang, yang, yang is full of 
woodsy suggestions. In the last of June I noted 
the sweet yah-ha of the nuthatch, the same yang, 
yang, yang, and his nearest approach to a song, 
the rapid yah-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha. In August and 
September the nasal yank is sometimes run into 
an accelerated half song. Thoreau gives the or- 
dinary winter note as qguah, quah, and while that 
expresses the mellowness of the note on some 
days better than yank, they are both descriptive. 
But though certain notes may predominate in 
given months, on a cold January morning I have 
heard from a flock of nuthatches every note that 
I had ever heard before at any time of the year. 
Like the other members of the quartette, the nut- 
hatch nests in holes in trees or stumps while its 
lightly spotted eggs, six or eight in number, are 
laid on a soft, felty lining. 
I am often surprised by discovering the nut- 
hatch at work in places where J despair of finding 
any birds. One day in December the snow-coy- 
ered woods seemed to have fallen into the silent 
slumber of a child. Not a breath came to blow 
the white cap from the vireo’s nest, or scatter the 
heaped-up snow that rested like foam on the slen- 
der twigs. The snow that had drifted against the 
side of the tree trunks clung as it had fallen. In 
silence the branches arched under their freight ; 
the rich ochraceous beech leaves hung in masses 
under the snow — not a leaf rustled. 
