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.
THE LIME
1. Lime Tree2. Leaf Spray with Flowers3. Pink Buds
4. Flower Cluster5. 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.