THE WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH Q71 
sorbed in his work that he forgets all about himself, and 
works half the time head downward, or oblique, or horizontal, 
as it may happen to be. Rarely does he stop to talk, and 
even then he only clucks in his throat, “not necessarily for 
publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.” 
WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH. 
Often in the silent and snowy woods, when your feet go 
rip! rip! rip! through the frozen crust, you hear close 
overhead a scratching, digging sound, as of some one gouging 
into rough bark with a pocket-knife. Look up, and it will 
be a Nuthatch, working away as if his job depended upon 
the doing of a daily stint. He thinks that in his case it is the 
late bird that catches the worm! His beak is like that of a 
