Nuthatches.



77



NUTHATCHES.


Citta Ccesia.


By Katharine Currey.


If a Nuthatch (or pair of them) is kept in confinement it

should have a large cage to dart about in, and logs of wood, apple or

elder in preference, to hammer its nuts into. In any but a large

enclosure it stands the risk of concussion of the brain, when darting

and dashing about with the lightning' rapidity of its movements.

The Nuthatch is extremely intelligent and easily tamed, but it never

loses its darting habits. I have often wondered, while watching a

Nuthatch hammering at a nut in a hole or cleft, why its long beak

never splits, but at the tip the hill curves slightly up—no doubt to

protect it.


The protective colouring of the Nuthatch conceals it com¬

pletely in autumn, as it hangs upon an old lichen-grown apple tree,

the grey of the stem, and deep brown of the wet leaves, or inside of

the bark where a bit is peeled off, harmonizing exactly with the

colours of the little bird. All the Nuthatches I have kept, except

one pair, I have let loose in spring after having studied them and

their ways. They lived in the orchard (and probably are still there)

in company with a pair of Redwings which, after keeping a year, I

let loose. The Redwings stayed and nested and sang as we passed

beneath the trees where they were. The pair of Nuthatches which

formed the exception to those I let fly, I kept in an aviary where

there were Doves, and where they had plenty of logs and stems to

hammer in. While watching them I used often to think the Doves

were worried and angry with the incessant darting about, hut I never

anticipated the fate that awaited the little Nuthatches. One day

both lay dead, stabbed in the hack by — ivhat ! I fear by none other

than the fierce beaks of the gentle Doves ! I rescued one little

Nuthatch once from a cruel fate at a dealers. It had almost dashed

itself to death in the tiny prison it was in. However, it revived in a

large cage with fresh apple branches and fir logs in it, and plenty of

earth and a bath. “ Nutty ” became very tame and ate out of our

hands and soon grew very handsome. In his cage was an old elder

stem, with a hole going right through it. This I stood up on end,



