find the Nuthatch is very different. He
keeps his body very close to the tree and uses his feet to creep about
like a mouse or chipmunk; he also goes upside down, in a way that
Woodpeckers never do, clings to the under side of a branch as easily as
a fly to the ceiling, and often roosts or takes a nap head downward on
the side of a tree-trunk--a position that would seem likely to give him
a severe headache, if birds ever have such things."

"This is the bird I saw the first day I went to the orchard with Olive;
but why is he called a Nuthatch?" asked Nat.

"Because, besides liking to eat insects and their grubs or their eggs,
he is also very fond of some kinds of nuts, like beech and chestnuts,"
said the Doctor, "and he may be obliged to live entirely upon them in
winter, when insects fail him. Having no teeth to gnaw and crack them
open as squirrels do, he takes a nut in his claws and either holding it
thus, or jamming it tight into a crack in the bark, then uses his bill
for a hatchet to split or hack the nut open. I have seen the bird crack
hard nuts in this way, that it would take very strong teeth to break.
People used to call him 'Nuthack' or 'Nuthacker'; these words mean
exactly the same thing, but we always say 'Nuthatch' now."

"Then there are Nuthatches up in the hickory woods," said Rap, "but I
never knew their real name until now; for the miller calls them
'white-bellied creepers.' Last summer I found one of their nests, when I
wasn't looking for it either."

"Do they build here?" asked Olive. "I thought they only visited us in
winter. I don't remember ever hearing one sing, or seeing one in late
spring or summer."

"They live and nest everywhere in the eastern part of the country," said
the Doctor; "but they are very silent and shy except in the autumn and
winter. In fact, this Nuthatch keeps his nest a secret from everybody
but his wife and the Dryad of the tree in which he places it; he will
not even trust the little branches with his precious home, but makes it
in the wood of the tree itself. You say, Rap, that you found one of
these nests--won't you tell us about it?"

"It was this way," said Rap. "I was up in a hickory tree trying to look
over into a Woodpecker's hole that was in another tree, when I stepped
on a stumpy branch that was rotten and partly broke off; and there,
inside, was a soft nest made of feathers, with, four very little birds
in it. I was afraid they would fall out, but there w