SOME NEIGHBORLY ACROBATS 41 



Who gave them their queer name? A hatchet would be 

 a rather clumsy tool to use in opening a nut, but these 

 birds have a convenient, ever-ready one in their long, 

 stout, sharply pointed bills with which they hack apart the 

 small thin-shelled nuts like beech nuts and hazel nuts, 

 chinquapins and chestnuts, kernels of corn and sunflower 

 seeds. These they wedge into cracks in the bark just big 

 enough to hold them. During the summer and early 

 autumn when insects are plentiful, the nuthatches eat little 

 else; and then they thriftily store away the other items on 

 their bill of fare, squirrel fashion, so that when frost kills 

 the insects, they may vary their diet of insect eggs and grubs 

 with nuts and the larger grain. Flying to the spot where a 

 nut has been securely wedged, perhaps weeks before, the 

 bird scores and hacks and pecks it open with his sharp little 

 hatchet, whose hard blows may be heard far away. 



