NUTHATCH. 17 



ing treasure, as he takes care to provide several hiding-places 

 for his purpose. In the month of March the Nuthatch be- 

 gins to think of providing himself with a mate, and then re- 

 tires to some wooded locality, when the male and female 

 commence their arrangements for making their nest in some 

 hole of a tree from twenty to sixty feet from the ground. 

 Having made choice of a cavity, they lessen the. size of the 

 aperture if it is too large, by plastering it up with clay, leav- 

 ing only a sufficient opening to admit one of them at a time. 

 The foundation of the nest within the cavity consists of a 

 few dry oak or beech leaves, or the scales of fir cones, on 

 which the female deposits eight or nine eggs (grayish-white, 

 spotted with reddish-brown), from which the young birds are 

 produced after thirteen or fourteen days 1 incubation. The 

 Nuthatch breeds only once a year ; and the young are fed 

 by their parents upon small caterpillars, until they leave the 

 nest and are able to fly, after which they subsist on insect 

 food. The Nuthatch very much resembles the kingfisher in 

 shape, but is so very different in its plumage, that no mis- 

 take of one for the other can possibly occur. In size it does 

 not exceed the house-sparrow, being five inches and three- 

 quarters in length. The beak measures about eight lines in 

 length, three lines thick, by two lines and a half in height at 

 the base ; it is of a very hard substance, and shaped very 

 much like an awl, and sharp-pointed. The tip of the beak 

 is dusky, the rest lead-coloured, but white at the root of the 

 lower mandible : the inside of the beak is pearl-coloured, the 

 swallow flesh-coloured, and there are some black bristling 

 hairs about the gape and chin. The iris is of a bright chest- 

 nut-colour. The legs and toes are covered with scales, and 

 are of an umber colour ; the tarsi measure nine lines in 

 length, the middle toe measures ten lines, including three 

 lines for the claw, and the hinder toe also is ten lines in 

 length, of which the claw measures five lines round the 

 VOL. iv. c 



