The graphic author of the “British Birds” says, “It is, at all times, a busy and cheerful bird, particularly at nesting-time. Its favourite food is nuts of any kind. It builds and roosts in hollow trees, and is seldom seen in the open fields, unless when in quest of the stones of the white-thorn or sloe. It may, therefore, be properly called a forester. Its dexterity in opening nuts and the stones of fruit is curious. It fixes the nut in a crack, on the top of a post, or in the bark of a tree, and, placing itself above it, head downwards, striking with great force and rapidity, with its strong, wedge-shaped bill on the edge of the shell, splits it open. When their food is plentiful, they have a favourite crack for unshelling the kernels, as sometimes a peck of broken shells may be seen under this crack.” The Rev. W. T. Bree tells us that “the tapping of the bird on the hard shell may be heard at a considerable distance, and that during the operation it sometimes happens that the nut swerves from its fixture and falls towards the ground. It has not descended, however, for the space of more than a few yards, when the nuthatch, with admirable adroitness, recovers it in the fall, and, replacing it in its former position, commences the attack afresh. The fall of the nut in the air, and the recovery by the bird on the wing, I have seen repeated several times in the space of a few minutes.” This is a little act of skill in the bird which it would be charming to observe; and here again I would remark, as I have so often done before, that this is but a single instance of what many of us, living in the country, might witness in some woodland nook near at hand, if we would only be lovingly still and patient, and interest ourselves in the ways and means of the innocent animal-life around us. The nest of the bird also deserves our notice; and let me here call your attention to the beautiful and living little portrait of the bird at home, given us by Mr. Harrison Weir, than which we have nothing more truthful from his pencil. The home of the nuthatch is nothing more, to begin with, than the hole in an old tree, which, probably, has been deserted by the woodpecker. As, however, the woodpecker either requires a more enlarged entrance to her nursery, or considers it more seemly, the nuthatch, who merely likes a snug little hole to creep in at, and nothing more, walls up the opening with a plastering of clay or mud, leaving only just room enough for herself to enter. Perhaps she may be afraid of the old tenants returning and again taking possession, so builds up a little defence in front; but of that I cannot say; certain it is she makes herself comfortably at home in rather an untidy nest, composed mostly of dead oak-leaves, and here she lays six or seven white eggs, with ruddy spots on them. [Sidenote: _Her Defence of her Young._]