White-breasted Nuthatch 
27 
nasal ank-ank of his white-breasted cousin is 
uttered, too, without expression, as if the bird 
were compelled to make a sound once in a while 
against his will. Both of these cousins have 
similar habits. Both are a trifle smaller than 
the English sparrow. In summer they merely 
hide away in the woods to nest, for they are not 
migrants. It is only when nesting duties are 
over in the autumn that they become neigh- 
bourly. 
Who gave them their queer name? A hat- 
chet would be a rather clumsy tool for us to use 
in opening a nut, but these birds have a con- 
venient, ever-ready one in their long, stout, 
sharply pointed bills with which they hack apart 
the small thin-shelled nuts like beech nuts and 
hazel nuts, chinquapins and chestnuts, kernels 
of com and sunflower seeds. These they wedge 
into cracks in the bark just big enough to hold 
them. During the summer and early autumn 
when insects are plentiful, the nuthatches eat 
little else; and then they thriftily store away 
the other items on their bill of fare, squirrel 
fashion, so that when frost kills the insects, they 
may vary their diet of insect eggs and grubs 
with nuts and the larger grain. Flying to the 
spot where a nut has been securely wedged, 
perhaps weeks before, the bird scores and hacks 
and pecks it open with his sharp little hatchet, 
whose hard blows may be heard far away. 
