NUTHATCHES. 63 



lent observation, wheeling around, lie again mounts, with fresh 

 activity, piping his unisons as before. Strongly attached to 

 his native forests, he seldom forsakes them ; and amidst the 

 rigors of the severest winter weather, his note is still heard 

 in the bleak and leafless woods, and among the howling 

 branches. Sometimes the rain, freezing as it falls, encloses 

 every twig, and even the trunk of the tree, in a hard trans- 

 parent coat or shell of ice. On these occasions I have ob- 

 served his anxiety and dissatisfaction, at being with difficulty 

 able to make his way along the smooth surface ; at these times 

 generally abandoning the trees, gleaning about the stables, 

 around the house, mixing among the fowls, entering the barn, 

 and examining the beams and rafters, and every place where 

 he may pick up a subsistence. 



" The name Nuthatch has been bestowed on this family of 

 birds from their supposed practice of breaking nuts by re- 

 peated hatchings, or hammerings with their bills. Soft-shelled 

 nuts, such as chestnuts, chinkapins, and hazelnuts, they may 

 probably be able to demolish, though I have never yet seen 

 them so engaged ; but it must be rather in search of maggots 

 that sometimes breed there, than for the kernel. It is, how- 

 ever, said that they lay up a large store of nuts for winter ; 

 but as I have never either found any of their magazines, or 

 seen them collecting them, I am inclined to doubt the fact. 

 From the great numbers I have opened at all seasons of the 

 year, I have every reason to believe that ants, bugs, small 

 seeds, insects, and their larvae, form their chief subsistence, 

 such matters alone being uniformly found in their stomachs. 

 Neither can I see what necessity they could have to circumam- 

 bulate the trunks of trees with such indefjitigable and restless 

 diligence, while bushel* of nuts lay scattered round their 

 roots. As to the circumstance mentioned by Dr. Plott, of the 

 European Nuthatch ' putting its bill into a crack in the bough 

 of a tree, and making such a violent sound, as if it was rend- 

 ing asunder,' this, if true, would be sufficient to distinguish 

 it from the species we have just been describing, which pos- 

 sesses no such faculty. The female differs little from the 

 male in color, chiefly in the black being less deep on the head 

 and wings." 



