234 The Nuthatches 



panionship, or soliloquy, is like the syllable tilt, pronounced as in Ger- 

 man, very short and slight, and repeated irregularly and indefinitely. 



The home life of the Nuthatch in summer is not so well known 



to most of us as his winter ways, because he is rather retiring during the 



nesting-season, preferring woods with a growth of large oaks or other 



hardwood trees to the neighborhood of human habitations. The spring 



song, however, begins before the bird leaves his winter haunts. It 



resembles the familiar laugh of the Flicker, but is not 



S Somf nearly so loud, and is more pleasing. It consists of 



eight or ten repetitions of a single syllable what, or 



ha-ha-ha-ha, etc. more liquid in quality than the call-note. 



The nest, which is placed in a hole in a tree, or in some similar situa- 

 tion, is prepared in March or April, according to locality. The hole is 

 usually a natural one in a decayed part of a living tree, or in a dead tree 

 or stub. It is enlarged and shaped by the birds, both sexes working 

 together. The lining is made of such materials as feathers, hair, fur, 

 bark-strips, and leaves, loosely thrown together. From six to nine eggs 

 are laid, white or cream-white, thickly and uniformly spotted with reddish 

 brown and lavender. 



The male White-breasted Nuthatch is a particularly devoted hus- 

 band. He carries food to his sitting mate, calling her to the mouth of the 

 nesting-hole to receive it. At other times of the year, too, the pair keep 

 together faithfully, hunting their food in close proximity to each other, 

 and keeping up a continuous conversation of pr-r-ddps and tilt-tilts. 



The Nuthatch has a stout bill and a strong 



^cafcher'" gizzard; and when he finds his in sect-food scarce he 

 ekes out his subsistence with seeds and nuts. 



The habit of "hatching," or hacking, chestnuts, beechnuts, acorns 

 and similar soft-shelled nuts, has given his kind its name of Nuthatch. 

 The nut is wedged into a crevice that will hold it firm, while the bird 

 hammers it open. Another interesting habit of this, and the related 

 species, is that of hiding nuts in cracks and crevices in the bark of trees, 

 holes in fence-posts and like places, presumably for the purpose of keep- 

 ing them for future use. This vegetable food, however, seems to form 

 a small part of the White-breasted Nuthatch's diet. Edward H. Forbush 

 regards this bird as a valuable aid to the orchardist and forester. It 

 feeds largely on beetles, including the boring beetles, on scale-insects, 

 and on many hibernating eggs, larvae, and pupae of insects. Ants and 

 spiders, and canker-worms, forest caterpillars, and plant-lice are also 

 eaten. One pair in Brookline, Massachusetts, was 

 seen to search beneath the burlap bands placed about 

 shade-trees to guard against the ascent of caterpillars 

 of the gipsy-moth, which the birds fed to their young in large numbers. 



I have this minute been watching a pair of these Nuthatches feeding 

 in my apple-trees and pear-trees. They traveled restlessly up and down 

 and around the trunk and branches, never proceeding very far in a 

 straight line, and stopping at every few hops to dig out a grub, hammer- 



