“This bird is very fond of nuts,” continued Gray Lady, “not the very hard ones like butternuts, but the smaller acorns, chestnuts, and especially the little three-cornered beechnuts, with the sweet meat. Having no teeth to crack them like a squirrel, and not being able to use his beak for a nutcracker, he wedges the nut fast and then uses his sharp, strong bill for a hatchet and hatches the nut open; by this he has earned his name, ‘Nuthatch.’ “There is another name that Goldilocks once gave him that is quite as good, and that would remind you of him wherever you hear it,—the ‘Upside-down’ bird!—for what other bird that you know can climb about as he does?” “Woodpeckers do,” cried Tommy and Dave, together. “Yes, and there’s another bird, little and brown and striped, that’s only here in winter and goes up and down all over the tree-trunks. I saw one this morning when I was coming up,” said Sarah, “and I guess Chickadees can go upside down, too, for I saw one hanging on to a fir cone yesterday, and it was head down.” Gray Lady laughed. “You all doubtless _think_ that all these other birds climb like the Nuthatch, but this is a case of wrong seeing, which is simply another form of not really paying attention; for not one of them walks upside down in the same way. Hear what one of our poets says of this:— TO A NUTHATCH Shrewd little hunter of woods all gray, Whom I meet on my walk of a winter day, You’re busy inspecting each cranny and hole In the ragged bark of yon hickory bole; You, intent on your task, and I, on the law Of your wonderful head and gymnastic claw! The Woodpecker well may despair of this feat— Only the fly with you can compete. So much is clear; but I fain would know How you can so reckless and fearless go, Head upward, head downward, all one to you, Zenith and nadir the same to your view. —Edith M. Thomas, in _Bird-Lore_.