WOODPECKERS AND THEIR ALLIES 73 



barrel, up he flaps with a gorbling wor - or - 

 er - or - work ; but he gets the whole charge, 

 fair under the wing, and comes crashing down 

 through the leaves, to be made into a Bogey 

 Rook, set on a long stick. The other black 

 thieves clutter out, dropping the nuts in their 

 fright ; and they ring up in circles, higher and 

 higher, until, so far as that particular tree is 

 concerned, it will be free from rook visiting 

 for a day or two. If the spread-eagled plun- 

 derer had, when living, acted like one of the 

 more experienced patriarchs in the domestic 

 economy of his particular rookery, he would 

 not have been caught. 



Our active friend the nuthatch rarely comes 

 to grief in his garden raids, for he picks up 

 the filberts and cobs from under the trees that 

 the larger birds have dropped. Twit - twit - 

 twit, he cries, and off he goes with his nut, 

 to fix it for breaking up in a crack of one of 

 the posts that support some climbing plants on 

 the lawn. 



Any number of creatures could be shot, when 

 on their plundering expeditions, if these were 

 carried on away from houses ; but they get so 

 very close to them that you dare not shoot. 

 Still they come to grief, artful as they are. 



