30 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



quality of a blast on a tiny tin trumpet. This note varies greatly in 

 length, sometimes being drawn out into a long whine; it may be 

 repeated in a very rapid series, or delivered in a slow, regular, delib- 

 erate measure. Often written yna, although kng suggests the nasal 

 quality better, it corresponds evidently to the sharply pronounced kank 

 of the whitebreast. The other notes of the bird, and there are many 

 of them (see below), may be regarded, perhaps, as variants, uttered 

 under different stresses of emotion, from these two main themes. 



The question as to w hat is the song of the red-breasted nuthatch has 

 been ably considered and convincingly answered by Francis H. Allen 

 (1932). He says: 



As the true song of the Red-breasted Nuthatch {Sitta canadensis) seems not 

 to be generally known and never to have been fully described in the boolis, it 

 seems worth while to put on record in "The Auk" as adequate a description as 

 I can give of the song as I have heard it this spring of 1932. I have heard the 

 song many times between March 27 and May 14 of this year from a bird near my 

 house in West Roxbury, as well as on two occasions from two other birds in other 

 places in eastern Massachusetts. The song when I firet heard it (March 27) 

 was so strongly suggestive of that of the White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta caro- 

 Imensis carolinensis) , yet so different in tone, that though I could not at the time 

 follow up the bird to identify it, I had little doubt that it was a Red-bi-easted 

 Nuthatch. On April 6 I heard the song again and was then able to connect it 

 definitely with Sitta canadensis, for I saw the bird in the act of singing. After 

 that and up to the time when the bird left us, presumably for his breeding-haunts 

 farther north, I heard the song frequently, and I never had any difiiculty in 

 distinguishing it from that of its white-breasted cousin, which I also heard 

 nearby not infrequently. The song resembles the familiar tva-ica-wa-wa, etc., or 

 what-ichat-what-what, etc., of the other species, but it is more rapid and higher- 

 pitched and possesses a reedy quality unlike the smooth, liquid tone of the 

 other. 



And he adds : "To my ears the note repeated is not at all the familiar 

 'nasal hank^ of the call-note but a much softer note that is not particu- 

 larly nasal." 



Aretas A. Saunders (MS.) speaks of the song thus : "Only once have 

 I heard anything from this bird that one could call a song. At Flat- 

 head Lake, Mont., July 1914, a bird called, day after day, a long yaaaaa 

 yaaaaa yaaaaa^ just like its usual voice in quality, but much prolonged, 

 usually three yaas in succession, and then a short pause. The sound 

 was so persistent that it became monotonous and almost irritating. I 

 found the bird sitting on a twig beside a stub with a hole in it (appar- 

 ently its nest) , with its head up in the attitude of song as it called." 



Harrison F. Lewis (MS.) sends to Mr. Bent the following compre- 

 hensive list of the notes he has heard the bird utter : " ( 1) The common, 

 well-known yna yna, yna, yna. (2) Zeee, zeee, zeee; zeee, zeee, zeee, 

 like the notes of a katydid. This is used by the male when scold- 

 ing an intruder near the nest, and when chasing a rival. (3) Biddy- 

 hiddy-hiddy-Uddy, etc., the notes being run off quite fast in long 



