Hazel nuts are eagerly devoured by squirrels and dormice, and there is one bird, the Nuthatch, that is very busy and grows sleek and fat when the Hazel fruit is ripe. This bird breaks off a nut branch and flies away with it to an old oak tree. There he strips off the covering of leaves and cleverly places the bare nut in a crevice of the rough oak trunk. Then with his strong bill he hammers at the shell till it breaks and he can get at the nut inside. On still October days in the quiet woods you will hear his bill tap-tapping from the trunk of the oak tree. [Illustration: PLATE VII THE LIME 1. Lime Tree 2. Leaf Spray with Flowers 3. Pink Buds 4. Flower Cluster 5. Fruit with Bract] PLATE VII THE LIME OR LINDEN “The Lime, a summer home of murmurous wings.” --Tennyson. The Lime or Linden (1) is one of the most familiar trees in our large towns. It is very hardy, and you find it planted by the side of our smoky streets, where it seems to thrive in spite of the clouds of sooty dust that cover its delicate leaves. But if you wish to know what a Lime tree really looks like at its best, then you must find one growing in some country park where there is space, and fresh air, and plenty of sunshine; then you will see how beautiful a tree it can be. The Lime is a tall, stately tree. It has many slender branches closely covered with leaves, which have each a long stalk. In old trees the branches often bend down close to the ground, but the sunshine always succeeds in finding its way under the Lime tree branches, and it flickers on the grass as it never does beneath the Beech tree boughs. In winter the Lime tree is difficult to recognise, although there is one feature you may notice: its bare stems and twigs are very black against the sky, and many of the branches hang so awkwardly that they look as if they were dead. But go to the park in spring, and at once you will know which is the Lime tree. Every little twig is coloured a delicate shade of olive green tinged with crimson, and bears many small oval buds (3) which are red like rubies. In May these ruby buds burst open, and their crimson coverings fall to the ground, disclosing the pale emerald-green leaf that is tightly folded within. The leaves (2) soon open in the sunshine, and you see that each is shaped like a large pointed heart, and that the two sides of the heart are uneven. The edge of the leaf is cut into sharp teeth, and all over it a network of fine veins is spread. When the leaf is still young you find tufts of soft, downy hairs on the under-side, and at first each leaf hangs straight down from its stalk as if it had not strength to rise and face the sunlight. But they soon raise themselves, and gradually their pale green colour darkens, though the Lime tree leaf never becomes so dark, nor is it as glossy, as the leaf of the Beech tree.