WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH 5 



for 2 weeks after they have left the nest. He says that the young 

 birds do not return to the cavity to sleep, but "cling upside down to 

 the trunk of a tree beneath a projecting branch." 



In Dr. Wilbur K. Butts's (1931) experience, "the male Nuthatch 

 does not assist in incubation. He does feed the female while she is 

 on the nest. * * * Both sexes feed the young." 



Plumages. — [Author's note: All the nuthatches are peculiar 

 in having a juvenal plumage that closely resembles the adult nuptial 

 plumage and in which the sexes are distinguishable by the same char- 

 acters as in the adult (see pi. 2). In the young male the black of the 

 pileum and hind neck is duller than in the adult and less sharply de- 

 fined against the gray back, and the edges of the greater wing coverts 

 are more or less gray. The young female is similar, except that the 

 pileum (front half of the crown) is deep plumbeous-gray instead 

 of black ; the hind neck is dull black. Otherwise, young birds of both 

 sexes are much like their parents. 



Dr. Dwight (1900) says that the first winter plumage is "acquired 

 by a partial post juvenal molt, in July, in Florida, which involves the 

 body plumage and wing coverts, but not the remiges nor rectrices, 

 young birds and adults becoming practically indistinguishable." 



Adults have a complete postnuptial molt in July.] 



Food. — The nuthatch feeds on insects as well as on nuts, acorns, and 

 other vegetable matter. Waldo L. McAtee (1926a) gives thus an 

 excellent summary of its diet : 



The White-breast has been observed to feed freely on beechnuts, to devour 

 acorns and hickory nuts, to take maize from cribs, and to be very fond of seeds 

 of sunflowers. These observations point to a fondness for mast which is char- 

 acteristic of the nuthatch tribe. During the winter months nearly all of the 

 food is mast, while through the spring and summer, much animal food is taken, 

 often to the full capacity of the bird's stomach. 



This is derived chiefly from the ranks of beetles, spiders, caterpillars, true 

 bugs, and ants and other small hymenoptera. Besides these some flies, grass- 

 hoppers, moths, and millipeds are eaten. Among the insect food items known to 

 have a detrimental relation to the forest are nut weevils, the locust seed weevils 

 {Spermophagus roMniae), round-headed wood borers, leaf beetles, tree hoppers, 

 psyllids, scale insects, caterpillars, and ants. The White-breast has been observed 

 to feed also on larvae of gall flies, eggs of plant lice and of fall cankerworms, 

 oyster scale (Lepidosaphes ulmi), and upon larvae of the gypsy moth and forest 

 tent caterpillars. * * * 



In the long run, the White-breast, no doubt, destroys a large number of forest 

 pests, and while not so valuable as some of the more highly insectivorous birds, 

 still deserves protection. 



The birds are fond of suet, as everyone who maintains a feeding 

 station knows, ^''illiam Brewster (1936) gives this scene of a pair 

 caching this delicacy : 



The pair of Nuthatches came regularly to the suet, oftenest in the early morn- 



758066—48 2 



