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APRIL, 1879. 



No. 9. 



Nest of the White -bellied Nut- 

 hatch (Sitta carolinensis). 



E were roamiug over tlie fields on a 

 bright clay in June, soarcliiiig for 

 what we might find, aud particular- 

 ly interested for the moment with the an- 

 tics of a Field Sparrow, when our inform- 

 ant asked us if we "• wanted a Woodpeck- 

 er's nest?" We did, most certainly, and 

 he agreed to conduct us to the tree, where 

 he said a pair of these birds had nested for 

 two or three years. We were led over the 

 country two miles or so and finally brought 

 up in a beech wood. Our guide pointed 

 out a huge beech in whose trunk, twenty 

 feet up, there was a knot-hole, directly be- 

 neath a large limb. To scale the trunk 

 was not the easiest matter, but after a short 

 struggle, with the aid of a broken bough 

 placed against the tree the hole was reach- 

 ed, when out flew, not a Woodpecker, but 

 a Nuthatch, with vociferous cries aud an- 

 gry contortions. The cavity was deep and 

 the entrance small, so it required some 

 time to reach the nest proper, and when we 

 did feel the chips, out scrambled two little 

 ones, who, with open mouths and weak 

 cry, rather surprised and disappointed us, 

 since it was with the hope of obtaining a 

 set of eggs that we tasked ourselves. But 

 after counting five young of about five days' 

 or a week's growth, there was still some- 

 thing left in the bottom of the nest which 

 turned out to be an egg, rotten and some- 

 what soiled, but otherwise a good speci- 

 men. This egg was white, covered with 

 small speckles of reddish, distributed over 

 its entire surface. 



The next year, and the next, we visited 

 the Nuthatch's nest in hopes of obtaining a 



full set of eggs, but the parents had aban- 

 doned it and probably repaired to some oth- 

 er locality. The nest proper was merely 

 a bed of chips and ^ saw "-dust, with a few 

 feathers as a lining. The year after ob- 

 taining the egg, another nest containing 

 young was shown to us, high up in a bass- 

 wood tree. 



The nest of the Nuthatch, though by no 

 means rare, is not very well known to 

 young collectors, and therefore the eggs are 

 desirable for cabinets. Of a number of 

 holes occupied by these birds for nesting 

 places, all but one were knot-holes. The 

 nest above alluded to evidently had contain- 

 ed six eggs, of which one as stated, did not 

 hatch ; but probably this is an exceptional 

 number, five or four oftener constituting a 

 set. Whether this species occasionally does 

 deposit a large set of eggs, like the Downy 

 Woodpecker or Flicker, we are not pre- 

 pared to state. When the nest is approach- 

 ed the parents run excitedly up and down 

 the adjoining trees, displaying an agility not 

 observable in their ordinary habits of search- 

 ing for insects, and their contortions seem 

 at times almost reckless and absurd ; while 

 the grating notes so often heard, are uttered 

 in such rapid succession as to appear al- 

 most continuous. 



The first instance of the occupation of a 

 Robin's nest by the Cow Bird came to our 

 notice on the 26tli of this mouth. Though 

 the nest was not quite completed, it was es- 

 pied by a roving trio and one of the females 

 quickly dropped into it. The next day the 

 Robin was seen completing her nest, and in 

 all pi'obability the egg of the Cow Bird, if 

 one was deposited, was covered up or de- 

 stroyed. 



