BIRD CURIOS. 33 
surprised this bird eating a corn grain in the very 
depth of the woods, a considerable distance from 
the neighboring cornfields. 
One winter day a nuthatch picked three grains of 
corn in succession from the fissures of an oak, and 
greedily devoured them. On another occasion one 
of these nuthatches was seen diving into a hole on 
the under side of a limb. Presently he emerged 
with a nut of some kind in his bill, and flew away, 
remaining just about long enough to eat it, when he 
returned for another. ‘This he repeated until his 
dinner was finished. 
No doubt, when cold and stormy weather comes, 
these birds have many a luscious mouthful because 
of their forehandedness, and no doubt they enjoy 
their well-kept stores as much as the farmer and his 
family relish their dish of mellow apples around the 
glowing hearth on a winter evening. It is no fancy 
flight, but a literal truth, that many a niche and 
cleft is made to do duty as larder for the feathered 
and furred tenants of the woods. 
With the birds that migrate, autumn is the season 
for gathering in large convocations, holding ‘“ windy 
congresses in trees,” as Lowell aptly puts it. The 
aerial movements of some of these feathered armies 
are often worthy of observation. Memory lingers 
fondly about a day in autumn when two friends and 
myself were clambering up the side of a steep hill 
or ridge that bounded a green hollow on the south. 
We had gone half-way to the top when we turned 
to admire the panorama spread out picturesquely 
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