I 



SOME BIRDS SEEN AT MARTHA'S VINEYARD. Ill 



and list. They are the fox, tree, white-crowned and swamp 

 sparrows. No purple martins, no veeries, nor thrushes of 

 any kind, save the hermit, which, strange to say, nests 

 there. No night hawks, nor hairy woodpeckers, no war- 

 bling, solitary, or yellow-throated vireos (and only one 

 white-eyed) in all the five years' search. There is no ex- 

 tensive land bird migration, while the migrator}^ movement 

 of sea and beach birds is very pronounced, and exceeding- 

 ly interesting. This October there was, however, an in- 

 teresting migration of red- breasted nuthatches. Associa- 

 ted with flocks of pine-warblers and chickadees, they flew 

 and chattered all about our little house in the pine woods. 

 I could have collected fifty specimens a day had I been a 

 marksman, or a butcher. This bird is erratic in his migra- 

 tions. One either sees him in large flocks, or not at all. 

 These may visit a locality for several seasons and then re- 

 main absent from it for as many more. 



I noticed some, to me. new features in this bird this 

 year, notably in his feeding habits. His manners at table 

 are very different from those of his white-breasted cousin. 

 Instead of running up and down the tree trunks head fore- 

 most, as the white-breasted bird does, the Canadian nut- 

 hatch hangs to a pine cone as a chickadee will, with his 

 back to the ground. After extracting the seed he flies off 

 with it to the horizontal branch of a neighboring tree, and 

 perching on it as a sparrow would, enjoys his meal, often 

 flying back to the same cone for more. He talks and chat- 

 ters incessantly, saying " yuar, yuar, yuar, yuar," in many 

 different kej-s, and as all the other nuthatches join in with 

 him they make a noisy, merry chatter like so many mad, 

 rollicking things who didn't care how much racket they 

 made. The white-breasted nuthatch says " yank, 3^ank," 

 and I have never seen him anything but quiet and decor- 

 ous. Though how he really feels inside when he gives 

 his note which sounds like a distant flicker, I am not pre- 



