CEEEPERS. 
7 
wooded and enclosed situations, and is in constant ac- 
tivity, searching for insects. It will creep round a branch 
with great facility, picking off the moss occasionally, or 
hammering against the bark. The tail of the Nuthatch 
is not of that firm texture whicli gives to the Wood- 
pecker such advantage in ascending the tree, but is flex- 
ible and short ; neither does the bird appear to require 
any such assistance, the strength of its claws being suffi- 
cient to support the weight of the body, and the position 
which it assumes, when hammering with its bill, being 
usually with the head downwards. It feeds upon the 
insects and their larvae that infest the bark of trees, 
and also upon nuts, and other hard seeds. Its method 
of arriving at the kernel of hazel-nuts or filberts is 
curious ; having detached the nut from its husk, and 
afterwards fixed it firmly in a crevice of the bark of 
some tree, it places itself above it, with its head down- 
wards, and in this position splits the nut by reiterated 
strokes of its bill. In the autumn, many of these 
broken nutshells may be seen in the open bark of old 
trees, in places where these birds abound, as they return 
repeatedly to the same spot for this purpose. It is not 
improbable that the nuts selected for this operation are 
tliose which contain a grub, and which have a perfo- 
ration in the shell, and are therefore more readily frac- 
tured. The filbert grub must be a dainty morsel for 
an insectivorous bird. 
The deserted habitation of a Woodpecker is occupied 
by the Nuthatch as a place of nidificatioii ; and in 
order to accommodate the size of the entrance to its 
own dimensions, the hole is contracted by a plaster of 
clay. According to M. Montbeillard, when it cannot 
