NUTHATCH. 83 



of July (I foolishly made no notes), on visiting one of the 

 boxes, I found only two young birds nearly ready to fly. I 

 took the box down, brought it into the house, and left it on 

 the hall-table with the doors shut, for about an hour. I had 

 not then seen or heard anything of the old birds. 



I then started in my dogcart, with the box between my 

 feet to keep it steady, for Henfield, Ah miles distant. When 

 halfway there I saw a Nuthatch fly over the box close to my 

 knees, and it chii'ped to the young birds ; but I did not 

 hear them answer, nor had I heard the yonng utter any note 

 at all. I delivered the box and birds to my sister, who put 

 them, box and all, into a cage under a verandah outside her 

 bedroom window. The next morning she saw an old Nut- 

 hatch feeding the young ones, and the day after there were 

 two old ones there, and these continued to visit the cage for 

 a week or two, sometimes in the verandah, sometimes in the 

 bedroom. The young birds became perfectly tame; but 

 some months afterwards (my sister being from home) one 

 was found dead, entangled between some wire and the bottom 

 of the cage. The gardener, thinking to please her, caught a 

 wild Nuthatch and put it into the cage, when it immediately 

 killed the remaining young one. 



How the old birds found out that the young were in the 

 dogcart, after having been an hour shut up in my hall, has 

 always been a puzzle to me. I thought at first the rest of 

 the young had probably escaped up the tree, which was 

 covered with ivy ; if so, it is still more strange that the old 

 birds should have followed the others 4i miles, and I think 

 it would be too much to suppose that the birds would main- 

 tain both portions of their family at so great a distance 

 apart. 



In the month of September I had the pleasure of driving 

 my friend Mr. Harting to Henfield, and found that the old 

 birds still continued to feed the young, which Avere in a 



g2 



