White-Breasted Nuthatch 27 



nasal ank-ank of his white-breasted cousin is 

 uttered, too, without expression, as if the bird 

 were compelled to make a sound once in a while 

 against his will. Both of these cousins have 

 similar habits. Both are a trifle smaller than 

 the English sparrow. In summer they merely 

 hide away in the woods to nest, for they are not 

 migrants. It is only when nesting duties are 

 over in the autimm that they become neigh- 

 bourly. 



Who gave them their queer name? A hat- 

 chet would be a rather clumsy tool for us to use 

 in opening a nut, but these birds have a con- 

 venient, ever-ready one in their long, stout, 

 sharply pointed bills with which they hack apart 

 the small thin-shelled nuts like beech nuts and 

 hazel nuts, chinquapins and chestnuts, kernels 

 of com and sunflower seeds. These they wedge 

 into cracks in the bark just big enough to hold 

 them. During the summer and early autumn 

 when insects are plentiful, the nuthatches eat 

 little else; and then they thriftily store away 

 the other items on their bill of fare, squirrel 

 fashion, so that when frost kills the insects, they 

 may vary their diet of insect eggs and grubs 

 with nuts and the larger grain. Flying to the 

 spot where a nut has been securely wedged, 

 perhaps weeks before, the bird scores and hacks 

 and pecks it open with his sharp little hatchet, 

 whose hard blows may be heard far away. 



