ON BOSTON COMMON. 25 
of; but instead of handling the leaf on the 
ground, he flew with it to the trunk of an elm, 
wedged it into a crevice of the bark, and pro- 
ceeded to hammer it sharply with his beak. 
Great is the power of habit! Strange —is it 
not?—that any bird should find it easiest to 
do such work while clinging to a perpendicular 
surface! Yes; but how does it look to a dog, 
I wonder, that men can walk better on their hind 
legs than on all fours? Everything is a mira- 
cle from somebody’s point of view. The spar- 
rows were inclined to make game of my oblig- 
ing little performer; but he would have none 
of their insolence, and repelled every approach 
in dashing style. In exactly three weeks from 
this time, and on the same hillside, I came upon 
another nuthatch similarly employed ; but be- 
fore this one had turned up a leaf to his mind, 
the sparrows became literally too many for him, 
and he took flight, — to my no small disappoint- 
ment. 
It would be unfair not to name others of my 
city guests, even though I have nothing in par- 
ticular to record concerning them. The Wilson 
thrush and the red-bellied nuthatch I have seen 
once or twice each. The chewink is more con- 
stant in his visits, as is also the golden-winged 
woodpecker. Our familiar little downy wood- 
pecker, on the other hand, has thus far kept 
