240 Twelve Months With 



Blithe days, thou see'st, thou feathered Robin Hood I 

 Thou mak'st a jest of farm-land boundaries. 

 Take all thou may'st, and never count it crime 

 To rob the greatest robber of the earth; 

 Weak-visioned, dull, self-lauding man, whose worth 

 Is in his own esteem. Bide thou thy time ; 

 Thou knowest far more of Nature's lore than he, 

 And her wise lap shall still provide for thee." 



Our common nuthatches, both of which are 

 permanent residents, are the white-breasted and 

 the red-breasted. Both have characteristic notes, 

 consisting of a nasal "Yank! Yank!" in an alto 

 key, but the notes of the white-breast are decidedly 

 the more vigorous, and he is a third larger than 

 his cousin, the red-breast. Because of his won- 

 derful acrobatic feats in running about under 

 limbs and branches, and along tree trunks, head 

 downward, the nuthatch has sometimes been called 

 "Devil-down-head." 



Maurice Thompson describes him thus: 



"The busy nuthatch climbs his tree, 

 Around the great bole spirally, 



Peeping into wrinkles gray, 

 Under ruffled lichens gay, 



Lazily piping one sharp note 

 From his silver mailed throat." 



When in his downward course he arrives near 

 the base of a tree, he flies high into a neighboring 



