6 USEFUL BIRDS. 
twenty-eight eggs of canker worms. Four others contained about 
six hundred eggs of canker worms and a hundred and five mature, 
female canker worms. Surely, if any bird deserves protection, it 
is this one. Such a familiar bird hardly calls for a description. 
Head, back of neck and throat, black; sides of head and neck, 
whitish; breast, white; sides, washed with brownish yellow. 
Length, about five and one-half inches. Nests in old stumps and 
decayed trees, preferably birch; holes generally not far from 
ground. In addition to its cheerful “chick-a-dee-dee” it has a 
number of other notes, some of them extremely musical. 
SCREECH OWL. 
(Plate I, Fig. 4.) 
Varies greatly in color from reddish or rufous to gray. In 
rufous specimens, rufous above, generally showing fine black lines. 
Below, whitish, with feathers barred with reddish or rufous. Or, 
in grayish specimens, above, brownish gray with faint black mark- 
ings mingling with brown. Length, about ten inches. This is a 
quite familiar bird about our orchards and barnyards, and as its 
food habits show, its presence should be encouraged. Of two 
hundred and fifty-five stomachs examined under the direction of the 
United States Department of Agriculture, one contained poultry; 
thirty-eight contained other birds; ninety-one contained mice; 
eleven contained other mammals; one hundred contained insects; 
two contained lizards; four contained batrachians; one contained 
fish; five contained spiders; nine contained crawfish; seven con- 
tained miscellaneous matter; two contained scorpions; two con- 
tained earthworms; and forty-three were empty. 
WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH. 
(Pilate J, Fige-5:) 
The only one of our birds which is commonly seen “climbing” 
down a tree as well as up. About six inches long, gray, with white 
under part; top of head, black; back, bluish. Ranges practically 
over the entire United States and Mexico. Over one-half of its 
food consists of insects. Nests in holes in trees. This is one of the 
few birds which remain with us over winter, at which time we fre- 
quently find it associating with chickadees, downy woodpeckers, 
kinglets, and brown creepers. Its rather coarse note frequently 
repeated has been likened to the word “yank” repeated, with a 
nasal sound. A close cousin of this bird, the red-breasted nuthatch, 
