232 BIRD WATCHING 



together, and the birds high up, I could not observe 

 the manner of it — the sound (as I said before) being 

 very peculiar. I therefore climbed the tree (which was 

 easy), and the birds being now often quite near — 

 though the branches and great clusters of needle-tufts 

 were much in the way — I ascertained that it was the 

 greenfinch alone which was producing the peculiar, 

 vibratory noise, but how, exactly, he did it I could 

 not make out. He appeared to be tearing at the 

 woody sheaths or clubs (which stood wide apart) of 

 the large fir-cones, and it seemed as though, to give the 

 vibration in the sound, either the mandibles must work 

 against each other with extraordinary swiftness, or the 

 clubs of the cone itself vibrate in some manner against 

 the beak, thus causing the sound in question to mingle 

 with the scratching made by the latter against the 

 hard surface. 



"The great-tit and the nut-hatch are also busy at 

 the cones. The former strikes them repeatedly with 

 his bill, making a quick ' rat-tat-tat.' He attacks them 

 either from the branch or twigs from which they hang, 

 striking downwards, or clinging to the side of one and 

 striking sideway-downwards, or even hanging at their 

 tips, in which case he hammers up at them. Whilst 

 hammering, or rather pick-axeing, he often bends his 

 head very sharply from the body — almost at a right 

 angle — towards the point at which his blow is aimed, 

 and he then becomes, as it were, a natural, live picl<^ 

 axe, of which his body is the handle and his head 

 and beak the pick. After hammering a little on 

 one of two cones that hang together, he perches 

 on the other one, and, in the intervals of hammer- 

 ing it, shifts his head to the first and gives it, as 



