THE BIRDS OF THE GREEN LANES. 137 



aiding each stroke by the clapping of its wings. 

 Presently the hard shell gives way, and the juicy 

 kernel is the reward of perseverance. It will, 

 perhaps, go to the same tree time after time, until 

 you find quite a litter of empty nut-shells at the 

 base. But it is not so thoughtful about its present 

 appetite as to forget the demands of December and 

 January, for it is in those months that you may see 

 it disinterring the buried spoils of the late summer. 

 In the winter-time, when the leaves are gone, you 

 may watch the nuthatch with greater ease. Whilst 

 you are then doing so, you cannot fail to be attracted 

 by a noisy chattering of certain other birds. This 

 noise you had, perhaps, noticed in the summer, and 

 endeavoured to discover what it was, but the thick 

 foliage and the birds' too rapid disappearance forbade 

 you. In the winter months, you have, so far, an 

 advantage. It is the Jay (Garrulus glandarius), 

 certainly one of the prettiest in plumage of all our 

 native birds, as the demand made by ladies for the 

 wing-feathers only too fatally indicates. It feeds on 

 pretty much the same kind of diet as the Nuthatch, 

 acorns, beech-masts, hazel-nuts, &c., although it is 

 not indifferent to the charms of a flesh diet, consist- 

 ing of grubs, worms, mice, eggs, and small birds; 

 varied, in the proper season, with a desert of cherries 

 or plums. If you are in an old oak-wood you are 

 pretty sure to see this bird, for that is the spot it 

 most affects. The young will follow their parents 

 like chickens, and chatter terrifically when hungry 



