SONG BIRDS OF ORCHARD AND WOODLAND. 173 



tervals, one after another, and evidently used the cavity as 

 a lodging place, for that night at least. 1 



Even the Woodpeckers, supplied as they are with a re- 

 versed toe and a stiff, supporting tail, cannot compete with 

 the Nuthatches in descending head first. The Woodpecker 

 when going down the trunk finds itself in the same pre- 

 dicament as the bear, its climbing tools work only one 

 way. It is dependent on its stiff tail for support, and so 

 must needs hop down backwards. The Creeper is still more 

 hide-bound in its habits, and its motto seems to be "Excel- 

 sior." It begins at the foot of its ladder and climbs ever 

 upward. But the climbing ability of the Nuthatch is unlim- 

 ited. It circles round the branches, or moves up, down, 

 and around the trunks, apparently oblivious to the law of 

 gravitation. Its readiness in descending topsy-turvy is due 

 in part to the fact that, as the 

 quills of its tail are not stiff 

 enough to afford support, it 

 is obliged to depend upon its 

 legs and feet. As it has on 

 each foot three toes in front 

 and only one behind, it re- 

 verses the position of one 

 foot in going head downward, 

 throwing it out sidewise and 

 backward, so that the three 

 long claws on the three front 



Fig. 55. Nuthatches. 



toes grip the bark and keep 

 the bird from falling forward . 

 The other foot is thrown forward, and thus with feet far 

 apart the " little gymnast has a wide base beneath him." In 

 the third volume of Reed's American Ornithology Rev. Lean- 

 der S. Keyser describes and illustrates this manner of pro- 

 gression. The Nuthatch not only straddles in going down 

 the tree, but spreads its legs widely in going round the trunk, 

 as will be seen by the accompanying cut, sketched from life 

 in 1895. Mr. William Brewster has photographed the Red- 

 breasted Nuthatch in similar positions,, but bird artists gen- 



1 Eeed's American Ornithology, Vol. 2, 1902, p. 171. 



