Ayn NEIGHBOURHOOD. 139 



amusing bird, combining many of the characteristic 

 habits of the Woodpeckers, the Titmice, and the 

 Tree-Creepers. It is continually in action, creeping 

 up and down the rough bark of our large trees in 

 search of insect-food, or hammering with intense 

 energy at a nut or hard seed which it has previously 

 fixed in some* suitable crevice. At Lilford, in the 

 winter months, these birds bring great quantities of 

 beech-mast to a certain interstice in the masonry of 

 the porch over the front door, and are to be seen at 

 work there almost every day from daylight till about 

 midday. The ordinary call-note of the Nuthatch is 

 a loud double, " twit, twit ; " but at pairing-time the 

 male has a sort of long whistle, which often breaks 

 into a hurried tw'itter, and is very distinct from the 

 note of any other of our common birds. This is a very 

 pugnacious little bird, and I have often been much 

 amused at watching the attacks and pursuits carried 

 on between it and various species of the Titmouse 

 family and the Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, to say 

 nothing of frequent civil or domestic squabbles be- 

 tween individual Nuthatches. The food of this 

 species is very varied, consisting in summer chiefly 

 of insects, and in autumn and winter of nuts of all 

 sorts, fir-seeds, hips and haws, &c., and, when it 

 can find them, bread-crumbs and all sorts of kitchen 

 refuse. The nest of the Nuthatch is generally situated 

 in the hole of a hollow tree, but many exceptions to 

 this rule are mentioned by various authors, as, for 

 instance, a hole in a wall, and in one instance, 

 described by Mr. Bond in the ' Zoologist ' and quoted 

 by Yarrell, " in the side of a haystack, where the 

 mass of clay," accumulated by the birds, " weighed 

 no less than eleven pounds, and measured thirteen 



