friend come out of the house and approach the table with their morning meal. We always fed them at our own breakfast time. At last we tried whether they would take food from the hand, and threw them some. By this time they had grown so bold, that after a few days' trial they would catch the nuts thrown towards them—not, as I have seen it mentioned in some book of natural history, with the claw, but with the beak. They always darted down and caught the nut from beneath. They were now so tame as generally to remain in the neighbourhood of the mulberry tree, and fly towards us when we tapped on one of the branches-looking out sharp for a catch, which they very seldom missed.

It was very amusing to watch the jealousy with which they always drove the tomtits away from their feast. These poor little fellows soon found out that nuts without shells were nice eating, and were always ready, in case the tyrants were unpunctual at breakfast. If they were a minute behind time, three or four tomtits would peck away the instant the nuts were fastened down, eating as fast as they could during the precious interval; when, whack! down the nuthatch came among them, sending them off in a moment to watch him take his breakfast, while they made a pretence of examining the tree for small deer of their own. Not sharing the nuthatch's objections to the society of the tomtits, we contrived a plan by which they might eat without interruption. By stringing nuts on a strong piece of thread, and stretching it from the tree to the window-frame, we made them quite happy and independent. The nuthatch cannot feed without a strong grip for his claws; he then uses the weight of his whole body to give force to his blows, catching the chips as he strikes them off. The tomtit, however, hangs on, and nibbles away gently, swallowing each morsel as he bites it into his mouth. The strung nuts were indeed nuts to him; he ate them thankfully, and topsy turvy, while the enraged nuthatch had no purchase for his foot,

and consequently could not possess himself of a morsel; unlike the tomtit, he was unable to breakfast comfortably on a slack rope. However they had neither of them reason to complain, for they were both fed as they liked.

We found this sociability on the part of the nuthatch not peculiar to those which frequented the mulberry tree; for some

with the board. In their case, it was laid upon the window sill, and the nuts sewn to it through gimlet holes. The board was no sooner set out than the two birds were down upon it, and hard at work. Nuthatches are always found in pairs-matrimony appearing to be a permanent institution in their society. Any one living in a wooded part of the country, where these birds are found, might thus easily tame a couple. Ours became so sociable, that they would often set up their short note when they saw one of us come out of the door of the house. However frequently fed, they always asked for more, carrying off and sticking in the trees about for future contingencies, any pieces they did not feel inclined to eat on the spot.

Gilbert White, in his Natural History of Selborne,' has this brief notice of the nuthatch :-"My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter with its bill against a dead bough, or some old pales, calling it a jar-bird. I procured one to be shot in the very fact; it proved to be the Sitta Europea (nuthatch). Mr. Ray says that the less spotted woodpecker does the same. This noise may be heard a furlong or more."

Yarrell, in his History of British Birds' (vol. ii. p. 173), says :“The nuthatch is resident here all the year, approaching orchards and gardens in winter, but is not equally numerous in every district. By means of its powerful claws-for its tail feathers are not calculated to afford any support-it is able to climb with a short quick step over the rough bark of trees, and apparently with equal ease in any direction. Our woodpeckers are occasionally seen to hop in climbing, but the nuthatch creeps or runs along so smoothly that its motions more resemble those of a mouse than those of a bird.

"The call of the nuthatch is a shrill single note, frequently repeated; and like the other true climbers, it builds in holes of trees; if the external aperture is large, the nuthatch plasters up

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part of it with mud, and if the plastering is removed, the bird almost invariably renews it the first or second day. In reference to this habit of working with plaster, one of the names applied to this bird in France is Pic-maçon.

"The nuthatch makes a slight nest, or rather a collection of dead leaves, moss, bits of bark, and lays from five to seven eggs; these are nine lines in length and seven lines in breadth, white, with some pale red spots; the eggs are very much like those of the great tit, but the spots are generally less numerous and rather larger.

"In most of the wooded parts of England the nuthatch is found, but not often farther north than the Humber. It may occasionally be seen in Kensington Gardens. It is common in Central and Southern Europe."

BIRDS DYING FROM FRIGHT.

THAT animals frequently die from the shock of a sudden terror, is well known. The following instance has recently come under notice. A friend of ours, an enthusiastic naturalist, who resides in our beautiful Westmoreland, discovered that a fine pair of large white owls had been making their rummagy nest in a loft, where they would be disturbed by the entrance of very few rays of ungenial light. He climbed a ladder and looked in. There sat the solemn pair, in the deep hush of intense gravity-she upon the nest, he beside her, with no less than thirteen dead mice laid out in order before him, in readiness for the regular return of the meal times. They sat in all the stolid dignity of prescriptive wisdom, gravely blinking at the lord of the manor, though much too philosophical to betray the least surprise at anything which

could happen. But at a short distance from the sages was dimly visible the shadowy outlines of a wood-pigeon sitting on her nest. Again and again, and day after day, did our friend climb the stepladder, and superintend the birth, growth, and training of the family of hideous young owls; and still the shadowy form of the gentle wood-pigeon sat noiseless on her nest. By this time, the form was sinking, and drooping, and losing its fair rounded outlines. She was dead: she had been dead from the first; and it is supposed that her gentle breast heaved with such a sudden paroxysm of terror, when the white-plumed sages first flapped in to fix upon a building site, that life departed: she had literally died of fright.

One of our fine Windermere swans was found, not long ago, sitting in grand monumental attitude upon her eggs, in a retired nook of the little dreamy bays. She was perfectly uninjured, and yet quite dead. The shadows of the mountains silently came and went, the reeds spoke in whispers only, and the old oaks had said and done nothing new for centuries. So that no natural cause of alarm was likely to have reached her in her calm seclusion. Perhaps some fox, bent on no good, had rustled the underwood not far off, or had slunk through the ferns just within sight; and, with one heave of terror, the swan's life may have left her. But nobody knows why the stately matron had failed to lead forth a little fleet of white cygnets on the serene waters of Windermere.

Another case of fright, with a less tragic ending, came under the observation of a gifted naturalist of Westmoreland. He was one day driving along the road, when, to his great surprise, a poor skylark suddenly flew into his gig. Panting and trembling with affright, it took refuge by his side. He looked round and above in search of the reason, and there, just over his head, was hovering a hawk, ready to pounce on his prey. The thing was intolerable; and away drove our friend, determined to defend the poor flutterer