SONG BIRDS OF ORCHARD AND WOODLAND. 173 
tervals, one after another, and evidently used the cavity as 
a lodging place, for that night at least.’ 
Even the Woodpeckers, supplied as they are with a re- 
versed toe and a stiff, supporting tail, cannot compete with 
the Nuthatches in descending head first. The Woodpecker 
when going down the trunk finds itself in the same pre- 
dicament as the bear, —its climbing tools work only one 
way. It is dependent on its stiff tail for support, and so 
must needs hop down backwards. The Creeper is still more 
hide-bound in its habits, and its motto seems to be “Excel- 
sior.” It begins at the foot of its ladder and climbs ever 
upward. But the climbing ability of the Nuthatch is unlim- 
ited. It circles round the branches, or moves up, down, 
and around the trunks, apparently oblivious to the law of 
gravitation. Its readiness in descending topsy-turvy is due 
in part to the fact that, as the 
quilis of its tail are not stiff 
enough to afford support, it 
is obliged to depend upon its 
legs and feet. As it has on 
each foot three toes in front 
and only one behind, it re- 
verses the position of one 
foot in going head downward, 
throwing it out sidewise and 
backward, so that the three 
long claws on the three front 
toes grip the bark and keep 
the bird from falling forward. 
The other foot is thrown forward, and thus with feet far 
apart the “little gymnast has a wide base beneath him.” In 
the third volume of Reed’s American Ornithology Rev. Lean- 
der S. Keyser describes and illustrates this manner of pro- 
gression. The Nuthatch not only straddles in going down 
the tree, but spreads its legs widely in going round the trunk, 
as will be seen by the accompanying cut, sketched from life 
in 1895. Mr. William Brewster has photographed the Red- 
breasted Nuthatch in similar positions, but bird artists gen- 
Fig. 55.—Nuthatches. 
* Reed’s American Ornithology, Vol. 2, 1902, p. 171. 
