214 CERTHIID^:. 



Adult male (in winter plumage). Hind neck, mantle and back pale 

 ashy grey ; upper tail coverts darker ; entire crown of the head grey, strongly 

 washed with grey brown ; the whole shoulder, edge of wing and the basal half 

 of the outer web of most of the quills carmine red ; rest of the quills dark 

 brown with greyish white tips ; second to fifth primary with two large 

 conspicuous white patches on the inner web ; tail brownish black, the 

 outer pairs with large subt erminal white patches ; all the feathers with 

 greyish tips ; sides of the head and ear coverts brownish white ; chin, 

 throat, sides of the neck and upper part of breast white ; rest of under 

 surface dark ashy grey ; under wing coverts blackish, edged like the axillaries 

 with carmine colour; under tail coverts tipped with white. Bill, feet and 

 claws black; iris brown. (Gadow.) In summer plumage the throat and 

 foreneck is black instead of white. 



Length. -6-5 to 7 inches; wing 4 ; tail 2-25 to 2-40; oilmen no to 1-38. 



Hab. The Alpine regions of Central and South Europe, Asia and North 

 Africa, being found in the Alps, Carpathians, in Abyssinia and in the Himalayas. 

 In Afghanistan it has been procured at Kandahar, also at Sagee and in 

 Beloochistan in the Zhob Valley, where Captain F. Babington Peile collected 

 specimens. It is also recorded from Kangra, Kumaon, the banks of the 

 Ganges and Nepaul. Jerdon says it descends in winter to the Alpine parts of 

 the Punjab. He saw it frequently near Darjeeling in winter from a level of 

 2,500 to 5,000 feet. It hunts about for insects in small ravines, on rocks and 

 on the face^of perpendicular cliffs. 



Sub-Family .-SITTING. 



Bill slightly longer than the head, nearly straight, subulate and compressed 

 at the tip ; nostrils in a coriaceous groove, exposed or hidden by the frontal 

 plumes ; wings long and pointed ; first primary short ; tail short, rounded 

 or square ; tarsi short, anteriorly covered with transverse scutae. 



Nuthatches, like woodpeckers, climb with great facility up, down and around 

 the trunks and branches of trees, but unlike them do not use their tail to assist 

 them ; usually they alight on trees with their head downwards, and it is said 

 they sleep in that position. They feed on insects and nuts of kinds, some 

 build in holes of trees, and others on the face of perpendicular cliffs. In the 

 case of S, syriaca, which is common both in Afghanistan and Beloochistan 

 in the Bolan Pass, the nests are made of mud plaster and cowdung in the 

 form of a projecting cone with the entrance inclined downwards. All about 

 the walls, within a radius of 2 or 3 feet, pieces of rag, feathers, &c., are 

 placed in small chinks, or plastered on to the wall. When breeding in holes 

 of trees, the holes are cemented till a small entrance is formed. 



