I started for Ball’s Hill at the usual time but 
was detained at North Bridge for over an hour which I spent 
watching a pair of Nuthatches. The female was busily 
engaged most of this time in bringing out some long, fibrous 
material (which looked like fine shreds of inner bark) 
from a hole high up (40 to 45 feet) in the old elm which 
stands at the east end of the bridge. This hole was 
apparently an old knot hole which had been enlarged by Red 
Squirrels for its edges showed the marks of their teeth. 
I think the Nuthatch was removing their nest, for the 
material looked like the bark shreds which they use, but 
I was puzzled by the fact that the Nuthatch, instead of 
dropping these shreds, carried them in large bills-full 
to the upper side of the branch where she spread them out 
and tamped them down with some care. She had evidently 
been at work for some time, for when I arrived the upper 
side of the branch was covered with the strands for a 
space two feet long by six or eight inches wide. 
It occurred to me that possibly she had spread 
them out here to dry, for otherwise why did she not fling 
them down to the ground? Moreover, she deposited them on 
the sunny side of the branch. Ifter finishing this work, 
she flew away with her mate. When I returned from my trip 
down river late in the afternoon, only one small patch 
— less than a tenth of the total material -- remained on 
the branch. The rest might have blown away, but this is 
not probable, for the tree was well sheltered by the pine 
