LOVERS OF NUTS 



199 



wherewith to cover his treasure. Probably he forgets 

 all about many of his hiding-places. 



It is amusing to watch how he opens a nut. Usually 

 he likes to wedge it in a crevice of rough bark point 

 upwards. Then, standing over it, he rapidly taps 

 away at the apex with his strong beak, until the nut 

 splits. The body sways back and forth as the taps 

 are delivered. The rapping noise made often is 

 mistaken for a woodpecker's work. Sometimes the 

 opening is ragged, but often a perfectly clean section 

 is taken out of one side of the nut at the top. If the 

 nut should be a bad one, the nuthatch soon finds this 

 out ; after a few sharp taps, 

 which perhaps pierce a small 

 hole, the nut is abandoned. 

 You may often find the remains 

 of shells opened by nuthatches 

 in the crevices of old rugged 

 oaks. 



Where nuthatches haunt a 

 neighbourhood, they are easily 

 lured to a garden if nuts are 

 set up to tempt them ; by 

 regularly supplying nuts we 

 have kept a pair in our garden 

 day after day for a year on 

 end. 



"My countrymen," wrote 

 Gilbert White in another pas- 

 sage, "talk much of a bird 

 that makes a clatter with its 

 bill against a dead bough or 

 some old pales [or pailings], 

 calling it a jar-bird. I pro- 

 cured One to be shot in the The Nut hatch : " Who said nuts ? ' 



