92 PASSERES. 



difficult to place. Tlioy agree very closely with examples from the 

 Amoor, and arc distinctly \\liitcr than those from Southcru Japan; 

 but they are not so wliite as examples from Central Siberia. 



The Common Creeper is a circumpolar species, and its range 

 extends across North America, where it seems to be subject to the 

 same climatic variation. Tropical f jrms occur in the Himalayas and 

 in Mexico. 



59. SITTA C^SIA*. 



(NUTHATCH.) 



Typical Form. 



Sitta casta, Wolf, Tasclienbuch, i. p. 12.-> (1810). 



Arctic Form. 



Sitta urukiisis, Lichtensteiii, Gloger'a Ilandb. Vog. UcuticLl. pp. .'577, 388 



(1834). 



Eastern Semi-arctic Form. 



Sitta amurensis, Swinhoe, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1871, p. 350. 



Kamtschatkan Form. 



Sitta albifrons, Taczanowski, Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 1882, p. 385. 



The Nuthatch has the bill of a "Woodpecker with the tail of a Tit. 



Figures: Dresser, Birds of Europe, iii. pi. 119 (typical form), 

 pi. 118 (Arctic form, but feet coloured wrong). 



The Nuthatch is a resident in all the Japanese Islands (Blakiston 

 and Pryer, Ibis, 1878, p. 23G). I have an example collected by 

 iSfr. Snow on the Kurile Islands. Dr. Henderson obtained it at 

 Ilakodadi in October 1857 (Cassin, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Pliilad. 

 1858, p. 195) ; and there are two examples in the Swinhoe collection 

 from Yczzo (Swinhoe, Ibis, 1874, p. 152). There are seven examples 

 in the Pryer collection from Yokohama. 



The range of the Nuthatch extends from the British Islands across 

 Europe and Sil)eria to Japan and China. 



The local races of the Common Nuthatch are the despair of the 

 ornithological nomenclator. 



Sitta casia, a smallish bird (wing 3*15 to 33 in.), with chestnut 

 brea.st, in the British Islands and Western Europe, intergradcs with 



Sitta ccenia hoineyeri in Pomcrania, the Baltic Provinces of Russia, 



• According to the law of priority Sitta europa?a ought to be accepted as the 

 typical fornt, but to avoid the absurdity of calling a Japani'se bird Sitta europaa 

 Kfidoixis, it is necessary to make Sitta cicsia the typical form. To do otherwise 

 •would be misleading. 



