CERTHIAD^. 263 



neither the reversed claw nor the stiff tail-feathers 

 of most of these hirds. 



The food of the Nuthatch consists partly of 

 insects and partly of nuts, acorns and beech-masts : 

 these it generally places in a chink in the bark of a 

 tree or a slit in a gate-post or railing, and hammers 

 at them with its strong beak until it succeeds in 

 splitting them, or in making a hole sufficiently large 

 to enable it to extract the kernel. In the insect way 

 it eats caterpillars, spiders and beetles. It may, it 

 is said, be tempted to pay frequent visits to any tree, 

 even close by a house, by nuts being placed for it in 

 the chinks of the bark, or even to a window if nuts 

 and bread are placed for it on the window-sill; it 

 then becomes so tame that it will take these things 

 from the hand. 



Like the Woodpeckers the Nuthatch places its 

 nest in a hole in a tree, but it makes rather more 

 nest than these birds. 



The beak, which is thick and strong, is of a bluish 

 black horn-colour, except the base of the under 

 mandible, which is light brownish white ; the irides 

 are hazel; the head, neck, back, scapulars, wing- 

 coverts, rump and tail-coverts are light bluish grey ; 

 there is a black streak from the base of the upper 

 mandible through the eye and a short way down the 

 sides of the neck ; the quills are dusky, the second- 

 aries and tertials rather broadly margined with the 

 same colour as the back ; the two centre feathers of 



