154 THE COMMON NUTHATCH. 



" Oh! Nature, how in every charm supreme, 

 Thy votaries feast in glories ever new : 

 Oh ! for the voice and fire of seraphim, 

 To sing thy glories with devotion due." 



We quote from the notes of the ornithological 

 friend, our obligations to whom we have before 

 acknowledged, a few additional remarks on the 

 peculiarities of this bird. " The nuthatch is 

 quicker in its movements than the woodpecker, 

 and is peculiar in its descent. I have observed 

 that the green woodpecker mostly alights on the 

 lower parts of the branches of trees to ascend ; 

 the nuthatch more frequently on higher parts 

 to descend ; and this he does often perpendicu- 

 larly, but sometimes making evolutions. I do 

 not know that this coming down head foremost 

 is worth alluding to but it has often amused 

 me. The eggs. Sec. of this bird are well de- 

 scribed by Bewick. You will also see in his 

 work, p. 114, the character Buffon gives of the 

 climbing birds, an erroneous one, I think. 



" Wilson, in his American Ornithology, gives a 

 very different account: he compares them to in- 

 dustrious workmen, and considers them very 

 happy. I am of his opinion I can fancy them 

 the happiest of mechanics. Wilson adds, that 

 these birds, the whole woodpecker race, are most 

 useful in pointing out the trees which are begin- 

 ning to decay ; it is only such they assail, for 



