42 



NUTHATCH. 



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

 bleak and leafless woods, and among the howling branches. Some- 

 times the rain, freezing as it falls, encloses every twig, and even the 

 trunk of the tree, in a hard transparent coat or shell of ice. On these 

 occasions I have observed 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 repeated hatch- 

 ings, or hammerings with their bills. Soft shelled nuts, such as 

 chesnuts, chinkopins, and hazel nuts, they may probably be able 

 to demolish, tho 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 however 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 sea- 

 sons of the year, I have every reason to believe that ants, small 

 seeds, insects and their larvse, form their chief subsistence, such 

 matters alone being uniformly found in their stomachs. Neither 

 can I see what necessity they could have to circumambulate the 

 trunks of trees with such indefatigable and restless diligence, while 

 bushels of nuts lay scattered round their roots. As to the circum- 

 stance mentioned by Dr. Plott, of the European Nuthatch " putting 

 its bill into a crack in the bough of a tree, and making such a vio- 

 lent sound, as if it was rending asunder," this, if true, would be 

 sufficient to distinguish it from the species we have been just de- 

 scribing, which possesses no such faculty. The female differs little 

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

 head and wings. 



