32 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



left their northern homes and are on their way to visit us. For in 

 any year they may move southward in fall, or they may elect to re- 

 main in the north through the winter, their movements depending, 

 apparently, on the state of the cone crop. We begin to look and listen 

 for them early in August and, if it is to be a nuthatch year, we have 

 not long to wait before we hear the little trumpet call and see the 

 tiny birds romping and rollicking through the woodlands. 



They are very common near the seacoast, especially during the early 

 days of the flight. I remember that Dr. Charles W. Townsend and I 

 found many of them in 1923 gathered in the little patches of pitch 

 pines scattered among the Ipswich sandhills, and William Brewster 

 (1906) speaks of them on their first arrival as occurring "on barren 

 points or islands along the seacoast, where they may be started in 

 beds of beach grass or watched climbing over the surfaces of lichen- 

 covered boulders and cliffs." 



William Dutcher (1906) gives an account of an extensive flight in 

 New York State thus : 



During a vacation spent on Fire Island Beach, New York, in September, a 

 remarkable migration of tliese birds was observed. Point o' Woods is a cottage 

 settlement, on the barrier beach, at this point about 1,000 feet wide, between the 

 ocean and Groat South Bay, which is here eight miles wide. The soil is sand- 

 covered with a rank growth of weeds of various kinds, low bushes, scrub-oaks 

 and small pines. On the night of September 20, it was very damp, with a mod- 

 erate southwest wind and a number of showers. On the morning of the 21st 

 the wind still continued southwest, very moderate, with a temperature of 74° 

 at 7 a. m. During the night there must have been a great flight of Red-breasted 

 Nuthatches, for they were seen on the morning of the 21st in large numbers. 

 They remained all that day, although there seemed to be a steady movement 

 to the west, which here is the autumn direction of migration. During the night 

 of the 21st, we had more showers, and on the 22d, the wind was strong south- 

 east, with some rain. There was a large migration of small birds during the 

 night, as the bushes were full of Towhees, Cuckoos and Kingbirds, and the Red- 

 breasted Nuthatches were more numerous than the day before. They out- 

 numbered the sum total of all the otlier small migrants. On the 23d, large 

 numbers of them still were in evidence, but not so many as on the 22d, and 

 on the 24th only a few were seen. 



The flight covered three days — 21st to 23d — while on the 24th the stragglers 

 brought up the rear, a lone laggard being seen on the 2oth. At the height of the 

 migration, Nuthatches were seen everywhere, — on the buildings, on trees, bushes, 

 and weeds and even on the ground. They were remarkably tame and would per- 

 mit a near approach ; if the observer were seated they would come within a 

 few feet of him. They crept over the roofs and sides of the houses, examining 

 the crevices between the shingles ; they searched under the cornices on the piaz- 

 zas and in fact looked into every nook and corner that might be the hiding- 

 place of insects. 



Every tree had its Nuthatch occupant, while many of them evidently found 

 food even on the bushes and larger weeds. On a large abandoned fish factory 

 at least 50 of these birds were seen at one time. The proprietor of one of the 

 hotels told me that five of the birds were in his building catching flies, they 

 having come in through the open doors and windows. 



