BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 125 



plaster it up with mud till it becomes small enough. With 

 the rest of the animal world the rule is to select what fits them 

 at first, and failing this to enlarge the house to their needs. 

 But the nuthatch has sense on its side, for it is easier to 

 reduce than to increase, and which of us, if the sizes of houses 

 made no difference in their rents, would not occupy by 

 preference tenements with what auctioneers call "commanding 

 approaches," and " noble entrance halls," even if we only used 

 the back-door to come in and go out at ? So the nuthatch 

 picks out a big hole and then reduces it to its own dimensions, 

 and the little nuthatches no doubt, when the tree-creepers 

 happen to come by, speak boastfully of " the woodpecker's 

 house" that they live in, but never say that they keep the 

 great front-doors shut and get in and out by the scullery- 

 window. 



Another little hole-nesting bird, an alien not often seen, 

 is "the cuckoo's mate," the wryneck, a bird of very pretty 

 plumage, mottled and barred, and yet curiously inconspicuous 

 when clinging to a tree-trunk. Should you chance upon its 

 nest it will twist its neck about in an extraordinary snake-like 

 way and hiss, a procedure which in other countries may some- 

 times, perhaps, protect the small creature from capture, but in 

 England, where tree-snakes are not common objects of the 

 country, can hardly do the wryneck any good. At other times, 

 too, it will pretend to be dead when you take it up, as the 

 corn-crake will, but as soon as it sees a chance of escape it is off. 



