126 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARV. 



THE NUTHATCHES. FAMILY SITTID^E. 



These little birds hold an intermediate position between the 

 Creepers and the Tits. They have a soft tail like the latter, 

 not a spiny tail like the Creepers, and they differ from both 

 the above-mentioned families in having a wedge-shaped and 

 Woodpecker-like bill, with which they are enabled to hammer 

 and prise off the bark of trees in a manner which would not 

 disgrace their larger Picarian relatives. 



The Nuthatches are chiefly inhabitants of the northern parts 

 of both Hemispheres, extending in America as far south as 

 Mexico ; and, in the Old World, they are plentifully represented 

 in the Himalayas, while in the mountains of Burma the largest 

 known species of the genus, Sitta wagna, is found. In the 

 Indian region an allied genus, Dendrophila, is plentifully dis- 

 tributed, finding in Madagascar an outlying and isolated repre- 

 sentative in the genus Hypositta, while in Australia and New 

 Guinea occurs the genus Sitella. 



THE TRUE NUTHATCHES. GENUS SITTA. 



Sitta, Linn., Syst. Nat., i., p. 177 (1766). 



Type, S. europcea. Linn. 



Of the European Nuthatches there are four species, two of 

 which are southern and two northern. Of the former, both 

 of which are black- headed, Sitta krueperi is an inhabitant of 

 Asia Minor, and Sitta whiteheadi of the high pine-forests of 

 Corsica. Of Sitta c&sia, the distribution is given below, and 

 Sitta europcea with certain variations extends from Scandi- 

 navia, across Asia, to Kamtchatka. 



THE NUTHATCH. SITTA C/ESIA. 

 (Plate XIV.} 



Sitta europcea, Lath., Ind. Orn., i., p. 261 (1790); Macg., Br. 

 B., in., p. 48 (1840) ; Newt. ed. Yarr., i., p. 473 (1873) ; 

 Wyatt, Brit. B., pi. 9, figs, i, 2 (1894). 



Sitta ccEsia, Meyer; Dresser, B. Eur., iii., p. 175, pi. 119(1873) ; 

 B. O. U. List Br. B., p. 28 (1883) ; Seeb., Brit. B., i., 

 p. 523 (1883); Gadow, Cat. B. Brit. Mus., viii., p. 347 

 (1883); Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B., pt. viii. (1888); Saunders, 

 Man., p. 105 (1889); Wyatt, Brit. B., pi. 9, fig. i (1894) 



