386 CLASS AVES. 



zine, where it hoards its provisions for the winter ; for this 

 bird is provident against the want which is consequent on 

 the rigour of that season. It is observed in autumn to be 

 always busy in making its provision of nuts and different 

 grains, sucli as hempseed, &c. It is not by breaking them, 

 like the small granivorous birds, that the nuthatch extracts 

 their substance. It pierces them with powerful strokes of 

 the bill, after having fixed them firmly in some cleft or 

 hollo\v. Its mode of perching is peculiar to itself ; for it 

 has been remarked that it often suspends itself by the feet, 

 or reposes itself on the side, and never in the manner of 

 other birds. The nuthatch runs up and down trees in all 

 directions, to chase the insects, on which it also feeds when 

 grain is deficient. It runs up and down with equal facility, 

 differing in this respect from the woodpecker, which rarely 

 descends, and never except in an oblique line. 



The character of this bird is very solitary. Its flight is 

 gentle, and its motions are neat and graceful. Its ordinary 

 cry is ti, ti, ti, ti, H, ti, which it repeats, with increased pre- 

 cipitation, in climbing about the trees. Besides this cry, 

 and the noise which it makes in striking the bark, it pro- 

 duces a very singular sound in putting its bill into a cleft, or 

 rubbing it against dry and hollow branches. This noise is 

 so loud, that it may be heard at a very considerable dis- 

 tance. In spring the male has a sort of song, like guiric, 

 guiric, which it frequently repeats. He and the female 

 labour conjointly in the arrangement of the nest, which they 

 fix in the hollow of a tree, and often in a hollow which has 

 been abandoned by the woodpecker. I'hey will even make a 

 hollow themselves in the tree with their bills, if the wood be 

 worm-eaten. If the external aperture be too large, they 

 contract it with unctuous earth. From this circumstance 

 they have received in French the somewhat ludicrous deno- 

 mination of torchepots, (torchisy yellow clay,) and also that 

 of pic-mafon. In England they are known by such names 



