50 
NATURAT, HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
spotted woodpecker does the same. *rhis noise may be heard a 
furlong or more. 
how is the only time to ascertain the short-winged summer 
birds ; for, when the leaf is out, there is no making any remarks 
on such a restless tribe ; and, when once the young begin to ap- 
pear, it is all confusion : there is no distinction of genus, species, 
or sex.* 
In breeding-time snipes play over the moors, piping and hum- 
obliquely backwards. Or it may be distinguished by its persevering and loud tapping, as, grasp- 
ing with its large feet the base of some out-growing bough, and swinging its whole body as upon 
a pivot, it strikes (in the attitude represented in the an- 
nexed wood-cut) with all its weight at a nut or grain of 
beech-mast, which it had previously firmly fixed in a 
crevice, and which, perhaps, it had brought from its 
hoard in the hollow of a tree, returning again and again 
to the same particular, conveniently-placed chink, to 
effect the fracture of the envelope. The bill is stout, and 
rather long, and very slightly recurved, a form peculiarly 
adapted for this mode of proceeding, and by means of 
which it is enabled to shell off considerable portions of the 
loose bark of trees, feeding upon whatever insects there 
may have been beneath. It is nearly omnivorous, but 
subsists chiefly on insects and oleaginous seeds. In confinement, according to Bechstein, and, 
when loose in a room, its manner of breaking the husks of the hempseed and oats, which are 
given it for food, is curious and remarkable. Taking as many as it can in the beak, and ranging 
them in order along the cracks of the floor, so disposing them that they may be broken with 
facility, it then proceeds to dispatch them one after another with the greatest ease and agility. 
It displays the hoarding instinct wiicn in captivity very remarkably, even more so than the tits ; 
and, reared from the nest, becomes very tame and familiar. Some observed by Sir W. Jardine, 
*' when released from their cage, would run over their owner in all dii ections, up or down his body 
or limbs, poking their bills into seams or holes, as if in search of food upon some old and rent tree, 
and uttering, during the time, a low and plaintive cry. When running up or down," continues 
Sir William, " they rest upon the back part of the whole tarse, and make great use as a support 
of what may be called the real heel, and never use the tail." They are rather social than 
otherwise, at least during the winter, at which time I have known one continue calling for more 
than an hour to its companion, that had been shot ; but in the pairing season they become very 
pugnacious, and I have then seen them fight desperately upon the wing. When flying they are 
easily recognisable by the shortness of the tail. The nest is placed in a hole, either in a tree or 
building, but mostly the former ; the entrance of it, if larger than convenient, being reduced in size 
by a thick plastering of clay. The female sits very close, and w ill even suffer herself to be taken by 
the hand, making a hissing noise when disturbed, as is the case with the pari, or tits, to which 
genus the nuthatches are somewhat allied, and which they further resemble in producing seven 
or eight white eggs, spotted with rufous brown ; the young are very like their parents. It is an 
extremely bold and active species, in the wild state more fearless than familiar, and even if shot 
at, and missed, appears in general not in the least disconcerted, or perhaps merely flies chirruping 
to the next tree, and resumes its occupation as before. It displays the same fearlessness when 
captured and placed in a cage, losing no time in fruitless and sullen vexation, but — utterly re- 
gardless of being looked at — eats voraciously of whatever food is supplied, and then proceeds 
deliberately to destroy its prison, piercing the wood-work, and effecting its deliverance from a 
stout cage of the ordinary make in a wonderfully short space of time. One caught in a common 
brick trap was found to have fairly ground its bill to about two-thirds of the proper length, in its 
persevering endeavours to escape. It roosts with the head downwards. — Ed. 
* I rather wonder at this remark from so acute a naturalist as Mr. White ; for 1 am unaware 
of a single instance, at least among the British species of the tribe here alluded to, wherein 
there can be the least difficulty in distinguishing one kind from another at any period of their 
existence. The warbling and chifFchafF pettychaps are the most similar, but even these may at 
any age be at once told by the colour of the tarse, independently of the differences in their reia- 
