6 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ing. I watched them closely for half an hour this morning [March 17, 1911]. 

 The male was digging out pieces up to the size of a large pea and carrying them 

 away to store them in crevices in tree trunks and behind scales of loose bark. 

 He took them to different trees and in all directions, usually going about 100 

 yards. Whenever the female was with or near him, he invariably employed her 

 to carry off and cache the morsel. She took it from him without hesitation and 

 flew, as he did, in various directions, chiefly to apple trees in the orchard. 

 Curiously enough, he would not permit her to touch the main store of supply 

 from which he was drawing. Whenever she attempted to do so, he attacked her 

 quite viciously and drove her away. Yet the next moment he would give her the 

 small pieces that he had just extracted. 



Edward H. Forbush (1929) states: "Several ornithologists have 

 doubted that they ever break nuts of any kind. There is credible 

 testimony however to support the statement. Dr. C. W, Townsend 

 says that he has twice observed the habit." Dr. Townsend (1905) 

 continues: "On one occasion, when the bird was disturbed, it flew off 

 with the acorn into which it had thrust its bill. Their object was 

 probably to obtain the larvae within." 



Those of us who have fed nuthatches at our window ledges and have 

 watched them feed at arm's length have had ample proof that the 

 birds do crack and swallow pieces of nuts. I have frequently had a 

 bird take a bit of nut meat from my hand and swallow it, or, if it 

 were too large, take it to the corner of the shelf, as to a cranny of 

 bark, and split it, and I have watched a bird crack open a cherry stone. 



Prof. O. A. Stevens (MS.) writes: "When they first appear in the 

 fall, we have often fed them squash seeds, which they cache with 

 great industry. I have at times watched an individual bird take six 

 or seven seeds in succession in different directions, hunting for suitable 

 places in trees, shingles, and other parts of houses." 



Behavior. — The white-breasted nuthatch spends most of his day 

 hopping over the bark of the trunks and main branches of large 

 trees, generally moving head downward toward the ground. Francis 

 H. Allen (1912) points out an advantage in this procedure, saying: 

 "I suspect that by approaching his prey from above he detects insects 

 and insect-eggs in the crevices of the bark which would be hidden 

 from another point of view. The Woodpeckers and the Creepers can 

 take care of the rest." 



Edward H. Forbush (1929) explains how the downward progress 

 is accomplished. He says : "They seem to have taken lessons of the 

 squirrel which runs down the tree head first, stretching out his hind 

 feet backward and so clinging to the bark with his claws as he goes 

 down; but the nuthatch having only two feet has to reach forward 

 under its breast with one and back beside its tail with the other, and 

 thus, standing on a wide base and holding safely to the bark with the 

 three fore claws of the upper foot turned backward it hitches nimbly 

 down the tree head first." A photograph in Bird-Lore, vol. 31, 



