200 IN NATURE'S WAYS 



very fact ; it proved to be the nuthatch. This noise 

 may be heard a furlong or more." 



It is surprising how few country people know any- 

 thing about nuthatches, though in places where they 

 are abundant they are so easily attracted to gardens 

 and kept at home. 



Whereas the little tree-creeper, when hunting for 

 insects in a tree, always works his way upwards, 

 the nuthatch runs as nimbly head first down a 

 tree-stem as he runs up, and like a tree-creeper or 

 a tit will cling upside-down to the under side of a 

 branch. 



The nest is in a hole in a tree, often in a woodpecker's 

 old nest-hole, known to be a nuthatch's retreat by the 

 plastering of mud around the opening. They are as 

 clever at using their bills as a trowel for plastering, 

 as for a hatchet, for brealdng open nuts. By putting 

 clay about the opening of a woodpecker's hole, they 

 reduce the size of it to suit their own ideas of fitness, 

 make it secure from draught, and go far to make the 

 hole burglar-proof. 



When nuthatches have nested in our garden in 

 nesting-boxes, they have always taken the precaution 

 of sealing down the lids of the boxes by putting a 

 lining of clay inside where the lids open. The nest 

 consists of chips of bark, apple-tree or fir bark, or 

 chips of fir-cones, making a dry, warm bed whereon 

 some five white, red-spotted, glossy eggs are laid. 



While the squirrel is a great lover of nuts, we doubt 

 if he seeks, attacks, and stores them with quite the 

 same intensity of purpose as the nuthatch. He 

 never seems to be in deadly earnest, the merry-hearted 

 squirrel. Even when it is the time of hibernation, 

 and he curls round for his winter sleep, he continually 

 wakes up to take a scamper about on dry sunny days. 



