648 NUTMEG-BIRD 



very plentiful anywhere, it is generally distributed in suitable 

 localities throughout its range — those localities being such as afford 

 it a sufficient supply of food, consisting during the greater part of 

 the year of insects, which it diligently seeks on the boles and 

 larger limbs of old trees ; but in autumn and winter it feeds on 

 nuts, beech-mast, the stones of yew-berries and hard seeds. Being 

 of a bold disposition, and the trees favouring its mode of life often 

 groAving near houses, it will become on slight encouragement familiar 

 with men ; and its neat attire of ash-grey and Avarm buff, together 

 Avith its sprightly gestures, render it an attractive Adsitor. It generally 

 makes its nest in a holloAv branch, plastering up the opening with 

 clay, leaving only a circular hole just large enough to afford entrance 

 and exit ; and the interior contains a bed of dry leaves or the filmy 

 flakes of the inner bark of a fir or cedar, on Avhich the eggs are 

 laid. Corsica has a Nuthatch peculiar to itself and remarkable for 

 its black crown, the S. whiteheadi of Dr. Sharpe, and in the LeA^ant 

 occurs a third species, *S^. syriaca, with somewhat different habits, as 

 it haunts rocks rather than trees ; while four or five representatives 

 of the European arboreal species have their respective ranges from 

 Asia Minor to the Himalayas and Northern China. North America 

 possesses nearly as many ; but, curiously enough, the geographical 

 difference of coloration is just the reverse of what it is in Europe — 

 the species with a deep rufous breast, S. canadensis, being that which 

 has the most northern range, while the Avhite-bellied S. carolinensis, 

 with its western form, S. aculeata, inhabits more southern latitudes. 

 The Ethiopian Region seems to have no representative of the group, 

 unless it be the Hypositta coralUrostris of Madagascar. Callisitta and 

 Dendrophila are nearly allied genera, inhabiting the Indian Region, 

 and remarkable for their beautiful blue plumage ; but some doubt 

 may for the present be entertained as to the affinity of the Australian 

 Sittella, with four or five species, found in one or another part of 

 that continent, which doubt is increased by the late Mr. W. A. 

 Forbes's discovery (Froc. Zool. Soc. 1882, pp. 569-571) that the genera 

 Acanthidositta (Spinebill) and Xenicus, peculiar to NeAV Zealand, 

 and hitherto generally placed in the Family Sittidm, belong really 

 to the Mesomyodian group and are therefore far removed from it. 

 The true Sittidse seem to be intermediate between the Faridx 

 (Titmouse) and the Certlmdse (Treecreeper), and some authors 

 comprehend them in either one or the other of those groups. 



NUTMEG -BIRD, the dealers' name in common use for 3Iunia 

 pundulata (Co wry- bird, page 108), but apparently of someAvhat 

 recent origin. 



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