THE RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH. 291 
and he publishes forthwith a broadside of sensational editorial matter 
which no thoughtful reader of the woods can overlook. The full 
war-dance song of the Red-breasted Nuthatch, executed, for instance, 
when he hears the false notes of the Screech Owl, is something like this: 
Nyaa nyaa nyad nya nyaa nyaa 
nyd nya Nyd nya nNYanYa nya nya nya nydnya and so on, in an incoherent 
strain of wild excitement, 
until he runs clean out of 
breath and quits, exhausted. 
The early notes of this orgic x 
rhapsody are interrogative and 
penetrating; the succeeding 
notes are a sort of trumpeting 
challenge for the intruder to 
show himself; failing which, 
the irate Creeper drops into a 
lower, non-resonant series, of 
doubtful meaning and more 
doubtful morals. But the bird 
is not always angry, and the 
nasal call sounding on migra- 
tion has a friendly quality 
about it which brings one has- 
tening out-of-doors to greet 
the traveler again. Contrary 
to an early report, the Red- 
breast is quite at home in our 
deeper forests. Indeed, his is 
one of the most characteristic 
voices of the solemn fir woods. 
He still claims an interest 
however, in deciduous timber, 
in bottom lands, and in the 
oak trees which border the 
prairies. In western Washing- 
ton, it is quite impossible to 
trace or to estimate the bird’s 
migrations, since it is present everywhere at all seasons; but it is probably 
much less abundant with us in winter. In eastern Washington, it is 
confined for the most part to the region of pine timber in summer, 
and altho it also winters here irregularly, the numbers in this part 
of the State are largely augmented by migrants during May and September. 
RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH, 
