The Nuthatch Family 69 



the nuthatch's glutinous saliva, leaving in the center a 

 circular hole just large enough to afford entrance and 

 exit for the little owner. Says the author quoted above : 

 "When the sitting bird is interfered with, she defends 

 her treasures with great courage, hissing like a wryneck, 

 and vigorously striking at her aggressor with her sharp 

 bill." Like our common white-breast, the British bird 

 may be attracted to human dwellings by furnishing him 

 a regular supply of food suited to his taste, and may grow 

 so trustful as to come when called, and even to catch 

 morsels thrown to him in the air. In the forest he often 

 hammers so loudly on a resonant branch that his tattoo 

 is mistaken for that of a woodpecker. The interior of the 

 nest " contains a bed of dry leaves, or the filmy flakes of 

 the inner bark of a fir or cedar, on which the eggs are laid." 



In northern Europe another form of the nuthatch 

 guild is found, known scientifically as Sitta europea, whose 

 under parts are white without any washing of buff on the 

 breast. 



The Levant furnishes a most charming addition to the 

 feathered brotherhood now under consideration. The 

 scientific gentlemen have christened it Sitta syriaca, 

 and its common name is the rock nuthatch, an appellation 

 that is most appropriate, for its chosen haunts are rocky 

 cliffs, over the faces of which it scuttles in the most 

 approved nuthatch fashion, head up or down, as the 

 whim seizes it, clinging with its sharp claws to the chinks, 

 ledges, protuberances, and rough surfaces of the rocky 

 walls. A little larger than its European cousin, its mark- 



