his bill slip over the outer edges of the fir-clubs, I am inclined to think that he was making the stiff clubs vibrate on their stalks—their hinges, so to speak—in a manner that would tend to loosen the seeds as effectually, perhaps, as would tapping them.
"Judging by these limited observations, I should say that the nut-hatch was the most skilful of the three in extracting the seeds, as, on the two occasions when I saw him plainly, he flew away with a flake, soon (once almost immediately) after he had come. He looked more like a connoisseur, too, and his bill is much longer. He alone, as I should think, might possibly be able to drive it right down, so as to seize the actual seed. Yet he tapped the cone in the same quick manner as did the tit, nor did he appear to me to be probing it at such times. Moreover, I never observed him—any more than the others—to extract the seed independently of the flake."
Birds that are not tree-creepers will often behave very much as if they were so, and show different degrees of expertness in the art. It seems quite natural that a small bird, which habitually frequents trees, should sometimes cling to the trunk; but what surprises me is, that with so much raw material to have worked upon, nature should not have developed some of our small perching birds into actual tree-creepers. My observations on the blue-tit and the wren show, at least, that should anything occur to make it difficult for them to procure food in other ways, or should they (and this is easier to imagine) develop a partiality for some particular kind of insect or other creatures living in the chinks or under the bark of trees—say spiders, for instance, which are
