50 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



spotted woodpecker does the same. This noise may be heard a 

 furlong or more. 



Now is the only time to ascertain the short-winged summer 

 birds ; for, when the leaf is out, there is no making any remarks 

 on such a restless tribe ; and, when once the young begin to ap- 

 pear, it is all confusion : there is no distinction of genus, species, 

 or sex.* 



In breeding-time snipes play over the moors, piping and hum- 



obliquely backwards. Or it may be distinguished by its persevering and loud tapping, as, grasp- 

 ing with its large feet the base of some out-growing bough, and swinging its whole body as upon 

 a pivot, it strikes (in the attitude represented in the an- 

 nexed wood-cut) with all its weight at a nut or grain of 

 beech-mast, which it had previously firmly fixed in a 

 crevice, and -which, perhaps, it had brought from its 

 hoard in the hollow of a tree, returning again and again 

 to the same particular, conveniently-placed chink, to 

 effect the fracture of the envelope. The bill is stout, and 

 rather long, and very slightly recurved, a form peculiarly 

 adapted for this mode of proceeding, and by means of 

 which it is enabled to shell off considerable portions of the 



loose bark of trees, feeding upon whatever insects there 



may have been beneath. It is nearly omnivorous, but Nutbatcl 



subsists chiefly on insects and oleaginous seeds. In confinement, according to Bechstein, and, 

 when loose in a room, its manner of breaking the husks of the hempseed and oats, which are 

 given it for food, is curious and remarkable. Taking as many as it can in the beak, and ranging 

 them in order along the cracks of the floor, so disposing them that they may be broken with 

 facility, it then proceeds to dispatch them one after another with the greatest ease and agility. 

 It displays the hoarding instinct when in captivity very remarkably, even more so than the tits ; 

 and, reared from the nest, becomes very tame and familiar. Some observed by Sir W. Jardine, 

 " when released from their cage, would run over their owner in all directions, up or down bis body 

 or limbs, poking their bills into seams or holes, as if in search of food upon some old and rent tree, 

 and uttering, during the time, a low and plaintive cry. When running up or down," continue* 

 Sir William, ' they rest upon the back part of the whole tarse, and make great use as a support 

 of what may be called the real heel, and never use the tail." They are rather social than 

 otherwise, at least during the winter, at which time I have known one continue calling for more 

 than an hour to its companion, that had been shot ; but in the pairing season they become very 

 pugnacious, and I have then seen them fight desperately upon the wing. When flying they are 

 easily recognisable by the shortness of the tail. The nest is placed in a hole, either in a tree or 

 building, but mostly the former; the entrance of it, if larger than convenient, being reduced in size 

 by a thick plastering of clay. The female sits very close, and will even suffer herself to be taken by 

 the hand, making a hissing noise when disturbed, as is the case with the part, or tits, to which 

 genus the nuthatches are somewhat allied, and which they further resemble in producing seven 

 or eigljt white eggs, spotted with rufous brown ; the young are very like their parents, it is an 

 extremely bold and active species, in the wild state more fearless than familiar, and even if shot 

 at, and missed, appears in general not in the least disconcerted, or perhaps merely flies chirruping 

 to the next tree, and resumes its occupation as before. It displays the same fearlessness when 

 captured and placed in a cage, losing no time in fruitless and sullen vexation, but utterly re- 

 gardless of being looked at eats voraciously of whatever food is supplied, and then proceeds 

 deliberately to destroy its prison, piercing the wood-work, and effecting its deliverance from a 

 stout cage of the ordinary make in a wonderfully short space of time. One caught in a common 

 brick trap was found to have fairly ground its bill to about two-thirds of the proper length, in it* 

 persevering endeavours to escape. It roosts with the head downwards. ED. 



* I rather wonder at this remark from so acute a naturalist as Mr. White ; for I am unaware 

 of a single instance, at least among the British species of the tribe here alluded to, wherein 

 there can be the least difficulty in distinguishing one kind from another at any period of their 

 existence. The warbling and chiffchaff petty chaps are the most similar, but even these may at 

 any age be at once told by the colour of the tarse, independently of the differences in their rela- 



