268 Certhiadce. 



which had previously passed through his hands ; while, in a 

 letter lately received from Canada, the Marquis of Lansdowne 

 obligingly informs me that one was shot at Bowood in the 

 autumn of 1886. In South Wilts Mr. Morres records it as having 

 been killed at West Knoyle in May, 1865 ; at Breamore in May, 

 1869; at Dean; at Upton Scudamore; at Mere, April, 1872; and 

 one picked up on Mr. Rawlence's farm at Wilton, in 1874 ; and 

 gives evidence to lead to the belief that a brood of young 

 Hoopoes had been successfully reared in the neighbourhood of 

 Stratford sub Castle in June, 1877. Mr. Thomas Baker, of Mere, 

 also informs me that another example of this bird was shot in 

 his neighbourhood very nearly at the same spot as that recorded 

 above, about 1868, and the Marquis of Bath writes that one was 

 killed at Longleat some time since. 



110. NUTHATCH (Sitta Europwa). 



This active little bird is to be found in our woods all the year 

 round ; in colour it is dark gray above, and orange-buff beneath ; 

 the beak is strong, straight, conical, and pointed, and with this 

 instrument it will hammer with repeated and most sonorous 

 blows the nut which it has previously fixed in some chink of 

 bark or crevice in the tree, and which it rarely finds impervious 

 to its sharp beak, which it brings down upon it with all the 

 weight of its body ; seldom baffled even by the toughest shell, 

 which it will turn round till it has tried every point of attack, 

 and generally succeeds at last in extricating the kernel. Should 

 the nut accidentally fall from the chink in which it is fixed, or 

 fly asunder, and the kernel drop out, the Nuthatch will dart 

 upon it with the rapidity of lightning, catch it in its claws before 

 it reaches the ground, and return with it to its former position. 

 It runs both up and down the stems of trees, and will descend 

 head foremost (in which respect it differs from all other birds), 

 and varies its nut diet with insects and their larva?, which it 

 extracts from the bark and leaves. When running up or down 

 a tree, it rests upon the back part of the whole tarsus, and 

 makes great use as a support of what may be called the real 



