ON THE NESTING OF THE NUTHATCH. 45 
Under all this were the putrid bodies of two dead Starlings. 
Had these Starlings been purposely clayed up and starved, or 
killed by Nuthatches ? 
At Taverham, on the 22nd of the same month, I saw a Nut- 
hatch’s nest in a walnut tree. Entrance hole lined with clay. 
Nest of pine bark, and containing two or three eggs apparently 
of Parus ceruleus buried in the bark, and mixed up with green © 
moss, probably part of the nest of a Blue Tit, which was rather 
noisy in the next tree at the time. A Nuthatch was also calling 
in this tree or the next one (a few feet off). I found no Nut- 
hatches’ eggs here, but I believe the Nuthatch still claimed this 
nest, ard intended to use it in spite of the Titmouse. One 
morning, a few years ago, I was watching from my bedroom 
window a Nuthatch which was peeping into a Blue Tit’s nesting- 
box which I had fixed on the window-sill. Suddenly a Blue Tit 
darted at the Nuthatch, and knocked it down, falling with it to the 
ground. The Nuthatch seemed perfectly helpless, and glad to 
avail itself of the first opportunity to fly away, after receiving 
about a dozen sharp strokes in very rapid succession from the 
Blue Tit’s beak. In this case the Nuthatch was “in the wrong 
box” (or nearly so), and was evidently taken by surprise. I 
think it is well able to defend its own nest against other birds 
generally, unless Starlings get in before the clay is hard. Even 
then it seems that Starlings do not always come out alive. 
Woodpeckers’ nests are frequently used by the Great Bat, 
and probably by other bats, but I never identified more than the 
one species named. I have found Great Bats in Woodpeckers’ 
nests both in winter and in summer. These bats make the nests 
so foul that I doubt if either Woodpecker or Nuthatch would 
again make use of them. 
Fungi also take possession of these nests sometimes, and so 
quickly do they grow that fresh eggs are occasionally embedded 
in the solid hard wood of a Polyporus as perfectly as a fossil shell 
might be in its matrix of flint or chalk. I can well imagine that 
some of the perennial Polypori, such as Polyporus fomentarius, 
might preserve eggs for many years. I once opened a Green 
Woodpecker’s nest by boring a fresh hole into the bottom of it. 
The bird was in, but there were no eggs, so I plugged up the 
~ hole I had made by hammering a dead bough into it. Several 
days afterwards I reopened it, and found the base of the cavity 
