10 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the male feed the female. The feeding was accompanied by a faint 

 little rapid chatter that was new to me. The h ddd'p note was so differ- 

 ent from the ordinary calls of the species that I did not suspect a nut- 

 hatch as the author when I first heard it," 



Field marks. — The white-breasted nuthatch is a small, thick-set bird 

 with a pearl-gray, unstreaked back, shining black crown, and black- 

 and-white wings and tail. The side of the head is white, without an 

 ocular stripe, and the bill is long, straight, and dark. It is the largest 

 of our nul hatches and does not resemble the smaller species closely in 

 plumage. Its confirmed habit of hopping downward over the bark 

 of tree trunks distinguishes it readily from the warblers, kinglets, and 

 other small avian frequenters of woodland. 



Enemies. — The white-breasted nuthatch is one of the species vic- 

 timized by the cowbird, but cases are apparently rare, for Dr. Herbert 

 Friedmann (1934) says: "I knew of three instances before; now an- 

 other one has come to my attention, a set of six eggs of the nuthatch 

 and one of the Eastern Cowbird, collected May 5, 1012, at State Col- 

 lege, Pennsylvania, b}^ R. C. Harlow." 



R. W. Williams (1918) gives this lively description of an attack of 

 two red-headed woodpeckers upon a nuthatch's nest and young : 



Bright and happy days for the birds, old and yonng, ensued, until one morning 

 before breakfast (May 9) two Red-headed Woodpeckers arrived on the scene and 

 inspected the box. I did not attach much significance to this and contented 

 myself, before leaving for my oflSce, with frightening them away by vigorous ges- 

 ticulations and by small sticks thrown at them. These methods seemed to suffice 

 for the time. Later in the day, however, I received a message that the Wood- 

 peckers were enlarging the entrance tind possessing the box, throwing out the 

 young Nuthatches — three having already bean cast to the ground — and altogether 

 evicting the parents, which, grief-stricken, were looking on from nearby stations. 

 The red-headed ruffians were at the box when I reached home that afternoon 

 but they disappeared at my approach. I procured my gun and took a position 

 from which I would be sure to reach them if they returned. I had not long to 

 wait. One of them alighted at the entrance of the box. I fired and the bird 

 fell to the ground directly under the box. Both of the Nuthatches flew to the 

 base of the tree and, clinging there within a foot of the ground, regarded the( 

 Woodpecker for more than a minute, with exhibitions of keen satisfaction and 

 exultation. 



I found another of the young Nuthatches dead a few feet away from the tree. 

 None of the young birds was mutilated to any extent, from which circum- 

 stance it seems probable that the Woodpeckers were not in quest of food, but 

 distinctly bent on mischief. 



Harold S. Peters (1936) mentions two flies. Ornithonica confluenta 

 Say and Ornithomyia anchineuria Speiser, which have been found 

 in the plumage of this bird. 



Fall and winter. — As we have seen above, no prominent migration 

 of the white-breasted nuthatch has been noted. P. A. Taverner and 

 B. H. Swales (1908) report from Point Pelee, Ontario, Canada: 



