WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH. 71 



summer, for the same reason that sounds are louder in the 

 night than in day-time that sound, half guttural, half 

 nasal, and on a low key, is one of the most familiar in our 

 woods throughout the year. It is the language of the 

 White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis], a bird so com- 

 mon here as to be familiar to every woodman, though he 

 may have no better name for it than Sapsucker, and may 

 know no more about it than to suppose the name charac- 

 teristic of its habits. But this bird is thus greatly misun- 

 derstood, for while it is supposed to be living upon the sap 

 of the tree, it is simply gleaning noxious insects and their 

 eggs and larvae. 



Whatever may be the woodman's opinion of the bird, its 

 presence affords him pleasure on a bleak winter's day, 

 partly because it is often his only relief from solitude, and 

 partly because the bird is a pleasing object in itself. How 

 gracefully it moves along the trunk of yonder tree ! A 

 slight halt every few steps, it goes in a spiral direction, 

 head up or down, moving forward, backward, or sidewise 

 with equal convenience, every now and then pausing with 

 its downward head and bill in a horizontal position, as if 

 listening intently, and then taking up its note as it passes 

 on, as if to express its sense of safety and satisfaction. 

 With this note it can favor one as readily on a frosty day 

 in winter as in the genial days of spring. Then, however, it 

 makes quite an attempt at a song, uttering a tway-tway-tivay- 

 tway-tway, quite rapidly, and with much spirit, as it threads its 

 way in the leafless trees on a bright April morning. Occa- 

 sionally it will utter in an undertone a soft "tsink, tsink" or 

 "kip, kip" Sometimes it will alight on the ground, appar- 

 ently to catch something which it has spied from a distance; 

 or, for a few minutes, it will search the ground after the 

 manner of the Golden-winged Woodpecker. The name 



