24 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



itself SO closely as does the White-breast to the natural cavities of trees, 

 but often, perhaps most often, makes use of a deserted woodpecker's 

 hole, in which it builds a nest of soft materials." 



Charles W. Michael (1934) , pointing out "the difference in habits in 

 the same species of bird in different sections of its nesting range," 

 says : 



Here in Yosemite Valley it has been my experience that the Red-breasted 

 Nuthatches (Sitta canadensis) never occupy old nests of any sort. Each year 

 the birds of a pair working in turn excavate a new nest-hole. Often they dig two, 

 or three, or possibly four prospect holes before finally deciding on the one that 

 is to be the nest-hole of the season. Most often they choose to work in the 

 dead wood of a living cottonwood. The second choice of tree is the Kellogg oak, 

 but I have also watched a pair of birds drill a nest-hole in the dead stub of a yellow 

 pine. In one case the same pine stub was used two different seasons, but in- 

 stead of using the old nest-hole, which appeared perfectly good, the birds quite 

 ignored it and drilled out a fresh hole. 



I have seen nests of the Red-breasted Nuthatch as low as 5 feet above the 

 ground and as high as 40 feet from the ground. The average height of the 

 nest-hole above the ground is probably close to 15 feet. 



Henry S. Shaw, Jr. (1916), gives this account of a pair of birds 

 that successfully reared a brood of young in a bird box at Dover, 



Mass. : 



On April 10, I noticed a female Red-breast carrying nesting material into one 

 of my bird-boxes. This is a Berlepsch box, size No. 2, made by the Audubon Bird 

 House Co., of Meriden, N. H. The entrance hole is 1% inches in diameter, and 

 the box, which is made of yellow birch, is placed in a white birch tree about 7 

 feet from the ground. It was put up in the hope of attracting Chickadees. 



I did not see the male Nuthatch at work until April 16, when I obsei'ved him 

 carrying shreds of bark which he pulled from the trunks and limbs of red cedars 

 (Jutiipcrus virginiana) growing nearby. Examination of the box after the 

 nesting season showed that the nest was composed exclusively of this material, 

 the box being filled to within an inch or two of the level of the entrance-hole. 

 The male usually left his load at the hole, without entering, and I suppose that 

 the material was put in place by the female inside. 



William L. G. Edson and R. E. Horsey (1920) report a similar nest- 

 ing in Monroe County, N. Y., in a bird box "placed on an Electric-wire 

 pole in the midst of thick hemlocks." 



It is an apparently invariable habit of the red-breasted nuthatch 

 to smear with pitch the entrance of its nesting cavity. All the 

 descriptions of nests mention this peculiarity, whether the nests are 

 in hard wood, pines, or bird boxes. In the northern woods the birds 

 use the pitch of the balsam fir and spruce ; farther south they use the 

 pitch of pine trees. The pitch as a rule is generously laid on, often 

 all around the hole. In Mr. Shaw's nest noted above the pitch was 

 added progressively during the nesting season, and Thomas D. Bur- 

 leigh (1921) says, writing of the bird in Montana : "The birds continue 

 to carry pitch to the entrance of the nest from the time the nest is 

 first begun until the young have flown. * * * On June 16 I found 



