NUTHATCH . 



101 



great courage, hissing like the wryneck, and vigorously striking at 

 the aggressor with her sharp bill. 



The food of the nuthatch during a greater portion of the year 

 consists of small insects and their larvae, found in the crevices of the 

 bark ; hence the bird is most often seen frequenting old rough-barked 

 trees, the oak being a special favourite, more especially if it happens 

 to be well covered with lichen. At times, when seeking its prey, 

 its rapid and vigorous blows on the bark or portion of rotten wood 

 can be heard at a considerable distance, and are frequently mistaken 

 for those of the woodpecker. In autumn the nuthatch feeds largely 

 on nuts and fruit- stones, and to get at the kernel he carries the nut 

 to a tree, and wedges it firmly in a crevice or in the angle made by 

 a forked branch, then hammers at the end with his sharp beak 

 until the shell is split open and the kernel disclosed. Its love of 

 nuts makes it easy to attract the bird to a tree or wall close to the 

 house by fixing nuts in the crevices. If supplied regularly with this 

 kind of food it soon grows trustful, and may even be taught to 

 come to call, and even to catch morsels of food thrown to it in 

 the air. Canon Atkinson, in his lively and interesting * Sketches in 

 Natural History,' has described the amusing manners of a pair of 

 nuthatches which he thus made tame by feeding. Since his book 

 was published, about twenty-five years ago, many persons have 

 adopted the same plan with success. 



Wren. 



Troglodytes parvulus. 



Upper parts reddish brown with transverse dusky bars ; quills 

 barred alternately with black and reddish brown ; tail dusky, barred 

 with black ; over the eye a pale narrow streak ; under parts pale 

 reddish brown ; flanks and thighs marked with dark streaks. Length, 

 three inches and a half. 



The little nut-brown wren nut-like, too, in his smallness and 

 round, compact figure with cocked-up tail and jerky motions and 

 gesticulations, and flight as of a fairy partridge with rapidly-beating, 

 short wings, that produce a whirring noise if you are close enough to 

 hear it, is a familiar creature to almost every person throughout the 

 three kingdoms, and is even more generally diffused than the house - 

 sparrow. Something of the feeling which we have for the swallow, 



