THE PYGMY NUTHATCH. 293 



tree, Imt i)nl_\" to cnnie back as often to the same fascinating bell. Finall\'. 

 from a new vantage point 1 made out the hole, a ver_\- fresh one in an open 

 stretch of bark al^otit one hundred and twenty feet u]). As I looked, one 

 bird entered the exca\'alion and remained, while the other nn united guard at 

 the entrance. After about fi\-e minutes of this the tiny miner emerged and 

 the other, the male, I think, trxjk her place. His duty ap])eared to be to 

 remove the chips, for lie stuck his head out at the entrance nionienlarih-, and 

 one imagined, rather than saw at that height, the tiny flashes of falling white. 

 All \'ery romantic, Ijut not a good "risk" from the insurance man's standpoint. 



These Nuthatches must delight in work. Tlie\- will spend a week in 

 laborious excavation, and then abandon the claim for no apparent reason. 

 Perha]is it is an outcropping of that same instinct of restlessness which makes 

 Wrens build "<lecoy" nests. One such finished nest we fi.uuid to be sliajied 

 not unlike a nursing bottle, a bottle with a bent neck. The entrance was one and 

 three-eighths inches across, the ca\'ity three inches wide, one and a half dee]), and 

 eight long ( kee|:)ing in mind the analogy of the bottle resting on its flat side). 



The birds do not alwa_\'s nest at ungetatable heights. A nest taken near 

 Tacoma on the 8th of June, 1906, was found at a height of only se\-en feet in 

 a small fir stump. The wood was verv rotten, and the eggs rested onl\- four 

 inches below the entrance. The nest-lining in this instance was a heavy mat 

 an inch in thickness, and \\as cC)mposed of vegetable matter — wood fiber, soft 

 grasses, etc. — without hair of any sort, as would sin-ely have been the case 

 with that of a Chestnut-backed Chickadee, for which it was at first taken. 



The Nuthatches appear to leave their eggs during the warmer hours of 

 the (la\', and one must await the return of the truant owners if he would be 

 sure of identification. One mark, but not infallible, is the presence of pitch, 

 smeared all around and especially below the nesting hole. The use of this is 

 not quite certain, but Mr. Bowles's hazard is a good one; viz., that it serves 

 to ward otT the ants, which are often a pest to hole-nesting birds. These ants 

 not only annoy the sitting bird, who is presumabl}- able to defend herself, but 

 they sometimes destroy unguarded eggs, or }-oung birds. 



No. 113. 



PYGMY NUTHATCH. 



A. O. U. No. 730. Sitta pygm^a \'igors. 



Synonym. — California Nuthatch (early name). 



Description. — .Idtilts: Crown, nape, and sides of head to below eye grayish 

 olive or olive-brown, a buffy white spot on hind-neck (nearly concealed in fresh 

 plumage) : lores and region behind eye (bounding the olive) blackish: remaining 

 upperparts plumbeous, browning (brownish slate) on flight feathers, etc., beconi- 



