DUSKY, GRAY, AND SLATE-COLORED 343 



heavy timber, the Slender-billed Nuthatch makes his 

 home through the long summer days. When the winter 

 storms threaten and food becomes scarce, he sometimes 

 works his way leisui'ely down to a lower altitude where 

 insect life is more easily found, but usually he remains 

 all the year in the same locality. So protective is the 

 coloring of these slate-colored birds that, but for their 

 nasal ''yang, zang, henk-ah, henk-ah "' (described by 

 Mrs. Bailey), they might pass unnoticed by the casual 

 observer. They travel head downward round and round 

 the trunks of the oaks, hunting in every crevice for larvae 

 and clinging to the under side of the large limbs as easily 

 as if right side up. 



The pairs remain together all the year round, and their 

 housekeeping connnences early in the spring with none 

 of the grotesque demonstration so usual among birds. 

 Quietly a cavity in an oak or a dead pine is selected and 

 filled almost to the brim with feathers, fur, short hair, 

 and moss by the united efforts of both busy workers. 

 By May 1 the nest is complete and the mother bird has 

 begun her cares. She is a close sitter, seldom leaving 

 the nest for food, but depending on the supply brought 

 by her mate and only indulging herself in a wing-stretch- 

 ing once or twice a day. The male is very attentive, 

 going to the nest so often that one wonders when his 

 own meals are eaten. As soon as the young are hatched, 

 which is twelve days after sitting begins, the female 

 assists in the search for food and comes to the nest quite 

 as often as the male. For the first few days the feeding 

 is by regurgitation. 



