212 
NATURE NOTES. 
course, are small matters, but they might just as well be right 
as wrong, and it would be quite easy to make them so. 
As a good example of the observations which abound all 
through the book, we may quote the following account of the 
proceedings of a nuthatch, of which, by the courtesy of the pub- 
lishers, we are enabled to give the accompanying illustration : — 
In the kitchen garden there is a large weeping-willow overhanging the river, 
near which at sundry times I have heard a tapping noise, but never could find out 
what caused it. I did not expect to see a nuthatch there, as, most usually, I see 
these birds in the sycamore or walnut tree at the other end of the garden. This 
afternoon, as I was dipping water from the river beneath the willow, I heard a 
noise just over my head. I stepped back gently, and there, very close indeed, on 
the slanting trunk of the tree, I saw the bird and its nut as plainly as possible. 
The willow bark is deeply corrugated with narrow furrows, into the angle of one 
of which the bird had thrust the nut (one of our filberts), and was perched above 
it, holding on firmly by its claws. It drew itself up almost to a slope backwards, 
and, with rigid body and neck, came down on the nut with its beak with machine- 
like accuracy. Every now and then it would go round and give a tap or two 
from below, apparently for the purpose of the adjustment of the nut ; but the 
main work was done from above. The bird remained some time whilst I was 
there, hard at work, but flew away at last, leaving its nut unfinished. 
Two things I derived from this observation : first that the bird had chosen this 
