120 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



round the trunk, with his tail pressed in against the tree 

 to sustain him (like the pointed stick trailing behind a 

 Pennsylvania wagon), peering into every crevice, poking 

 his bill into all the knot-holes and scars where limbs have 

 been shivered off, running out on each branch, here picking 

 up half a dozen eggs that only a bird's sharp eye could 

 find, there transfixing with his pointed tongue some dor- 

 mant beetle laid away on his bark shelf, or tearing open the 

 pupa-case of some unlucky young moth, snugly dreaming 

 of a successful debut in May. This creeper is always to 

 be found in our winter woods and orchards, yet is nowhere 

 abundant ; its life is a solitary one, and, although not shy, 

 it is so restlessly active as easily to elude the eye. If, in 

 the early spring, you have the rare fortune to hear its song, 

 regard the privilege as precious. 



Another creeping bird, almost always moving head down- 

 ward, more often seen in midwinter, because then he ap- 

 proaches civilized life, while in summer he retires to the 

 remote woods to rear his brood, is the familiar nuthatch, 

 whose peculiar nee-nee-nee the most indifferent, don't- 

 care-a-bit utterance in the world is heard from every other 

 tree-trunk. Like the brown creeper, the nuthatches seek 

 their food on the boles of trees, examining every part by a 

 spiral survey a sort of triangulation and are not content 



