“The nuthatch, on the contrary, though differing from the woodpecker in the formation of its claws, is a first-rate climber and spends its life running about on the trunks of trees, inspecting every crack and cranny for insects and pecking at the old bark. Three of its talons point forward, the fourth alone being turned in the opposite direction; but for firmness of support the last is worth two of the others, so thick and powerful is it, and the nail at the end so strong and hooked. The beak resembles the woodpecker’s, being straight, fluted lengthwise, and sharply pointed. It is an excellent tool for digging into wood and getting out the worms. The tongue cannot be projected like the woodpecker’s to catch insects with its glue, nor does the tail serve as a support. “The nuthatch examines old trees with painstaking care, going up and down the trunk repeatedly, or around it in a spiral, and sometimes visiting a branch above or below or on one side. Every crack is explored with the point of the beak, to the accompaniment of the bird’s resonant cry, tuee, tuee, tuee, repeated again and again in a penetrating tone. Very few insects can escape so careful a search. If grubs are lacking, the nuthatch makes a frugal meal of a hazelnut. First it fixes the nut firmly in the fork made by two branches, and then it hammers away at it, encouraging itself the while by uttering its cry, until the hard shell is pierced and the kernel exposed.” “It must take the bird a long time to crack a hazelnut with its beak,” was the opinion of Jules. “No, it is done very quickly, the beak is so hard and pointed. Very quickly, too, a caged nuthatch will break through the woodwork of its prison and make an opening large enough to escape through. Not even the woodpecker has a better carpenter’s chisel. “The nuthatch is about as large as a sparrow. All the upper part of its plumage is of a bluish ash color, the throat and cheeks are white, and the breast and stomach red. A black stripe, starting from the corner of the beak, passes over the eye and down the side of the neck. This bird nests in a hole in a tree trunk and it knows how, if need be, to make the opening of the nest smaller with a little moistened clay. Its eggs, from five to seven in number, are laid on moss or wood-dust and are of a dingy white dotted with red. It gets its name of nuthatch (which means nuthacker) from its way of hacking the nuts it is so fond of.” CHAPTER XXIV CLIMBERS—THE HOOPOE