92 British Birds, 



Willow Wren, not to mention one or two other small 

 birds. The illustration will give a better idea of the 

 Qgg than many lines of description. — Fig \Q, plate IV. 



FAMILY X.-SITTID^. 



NUT-HATCH— (5zV/^ Europcea). 



Nut-jobber, Wood-cracker. — A very beautiful bird to 

 my eye, with his bright slate-coloured back, and orange 

 breast, and black bill ; and a very great pet in former 

 days. I had a pair which had never known a day of 

 constraint, but which, by patient feeding, and care to 

 make them fearless of me, became so tame as almost 

 to take food from my hand ; to take it readily when 

 I jerked it a foot or two into the air. And they 

 would always come to my signal for them — a few 

 blows on the tree at which I fed them. But they 

 never suffered their young to come to the feast I 

 provided, and always absented themselves for about a 

 month at the breeding time. The nest is, I believe, 

 always made in the hole of a tree, and if the aperture 

 to the hollow is too large, the bird is apt to lessen it 

 by the application of a sort of mud-plaster to some 

 portions of the edge. The nest is rather a contrast 

 to that of the little Wren just now named, being little 

 more than a loose heap of moss, small twigs, and chips 

 of bark and wood. The eggs are five or six and some- 

 times, it is said, seven in number, white, with some 

 pale red spots. Many of them are very like the 

 Larger Titmouse's. — Fig. V^, plate IV, 



