386 NUTHATCHES AND TITS. 



only thing in the world he ever cared for, and that his one object in 

 life is to find it. Ignoring you completely, with scarcely a pause, he 

 winds his way in a preoccupied, near-sighted manner up a tree trunk. 

 Having finally reached the top of his spiral staircase, one might sup- 

 pose he would rest long enough to survey his surroundings, but like a 

 bit of loosened bark he drops off to the base of the nearest tree and 

 resumes his never-ending task. 



He has no time to waste in words, but occasionally, without stop- 

 ping in his rounds, he utters a few screeping, squeaky notes, which 

 are about as likely to attract attention as he is himself. As for song, 

 one would say it was quite out of the question ; but Mr. Brewster,* in 

 his biography of this bird, tells us that in its summer home, amid 

 the northern spruces and firs, it has an exquisitely pure, tender song 

 of four notes, " the first of moderate pitch, the second lower and less 

 emphatic, the third rising again, and the last abruptly falling, but 

 dying away in an indescribably plaintive cadence, like the soft sigh of 

 the wind among the pine boughs." 



Family Parid^. Nuthatches and Tits. 



Two well-marked subfamilies are included here, the Siftincp, or 

 Nuthatches, and Parince, or Chickadees. They are distributed through- 

 out the temperate parts of the northern hemisphere. About twenty 

 species of Nuthatches are known, of which four are American. They 

 are all climbers, but, unlike the Woodpeckers and Creepers, climb 

 downward as well as upward, and do not use their tails as a support. 

 Their name is derived from their habit of wedging nuts (with our 

 species, usually beechnuts) in a crevice in the bark and then hatching 

 them by repeated strokes with their bills. 



The subfamily Parincp. contains some seventy-five species, of which 

 no less than fifty, including the thirteen North American species, be- 

 long in the genus Parus. Both our Nuthatches and Chickadees are 

 migratory at the northern parts of their range. After the migration 

 they are generally found in small groups, composed probably of the 

 members of a family, which wander through the woods within certain 

 definite limits. 



KEY TO THE SPECIES. 



A. Tliroat black. 



a. Crown brown : sides chestnut 740. II udsonian Chickadee. 



h. Crown black ; outer margin of greater wing-coverts distinctly whitish ; 



wing generally over 2-50 735. Chickadee. 



c. Crown black; greater wing-coverts without white margins; wing under 



2-50 736. Cakolina Chickadee. 



* Bull. Nutt. On. Club, iv, 1879, pp. 109-209. 



