By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



55 



conical, and pointed, and with this instrument it will hammer with 

 repeated and most sonorous blows the nut which it has previously 

 fixed in some chink of bark or crevice in the tree, and which it 

 rarely finds impervious to its sharp beak, which it brings down 

 upon it with all the weight of its body ; seldom baffled even by 

 the toughest shell, which it will turn round till it has tried every 

 point of attack, and generally succeeds at last in extricating the 

 kernel. Should the nut accidentally fall from the chink in which 

 it is fixed, or fly asunder, and the kernel drop out, the Nuthatch 

 will dart upon it with the rapidity of lightning, catch it in its 

 claws before it reaches the ground, and return with it to its former 

 position. It runs both up and down the stems of trees, and will 

 descend head foremost, (in which respect it differs from all other 

 birds,) and varies its nut diet with insects and their larvse, which 

 it extracts from the bark and leaves. The name Nuthatch seems 

 to be a corruption of " Nuthack," which the habits of the bird 

 sufficiently explain. It is to be found in this county generally 

 wherever woods abound, but seems to prefer large oaks and beeches. 



CTJCULID^E. (The Cuckoos.) 



This family is but scantily represented in this country for we 

 have but one species, though that one so well known, and its 

 periodical appearance so generally hailed with delight as a har- 

 binger of summer, that it has attracted as much attention as many 

 families, comprising several genera and many species. They all 

 feed on insects and soft fruit, and are therefore unable to reside 

 during winter in cold countries : their flight is singularly smooth 

 and gliding and very rapid, and they move quickly from bough to 

 bough, rather leaping from branch to branch, than climbing like 

 those families of this tribe previously described: on the ground 

 they are awkward and constrained, their feet being very short and 

 weak : the tails of birds of this family are peculiarly ample, very 

 broad as well as long. 



" Common Cuckoo" (Cuculus canorus). There is no need to 

 assert that this bird occurs throughout the county, for who does 

 not hear its well-known cry every A.pril in his own parish and 



