648 NUTMEG-BIRD 



very plentiful anywhere, it is generally distributed in suitable 

 localities throughout its range those localities being such as afford 

 it a sufficient supply of food, consisting during the greater part of 

 the year of insects, which it diligently seeks on the boles and 

 larger limbs of old trees ; but in autumn and winter it feeds on 

 nuts, beech-mast, the stones of yew-berries and hard seeds. Being 

 of a bold disposition, and the trees favouring its mode of life often 

 growing near houses, it will become on slight encouragement familiar 

 with men ; and its neat attire of ash-grey and warm buff, together 

 with its sprightly gestures, render it an attractive visitor. It generally 

 makes its nest in a hollow branch, plastering up the opening with 

 clay, leaving only a circular hole just large enough to afford entrance 

 and exit ; and the interior 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. Corsica has a Nuthatch peculiar to itself and remarkable for 

 its black crown, the S. whiteheadi of Dr. Sharpe, and in the Levant 

 occurs a third species, S. syriaca, with somewhat different habits, as 

 it haunts rocks rather than trees ; while four or five representatives 

 of the European arboreal species have their respective ranges from 

 Asia Minor to the Himalayas and Northern China. North America 

 possesses nearly as many ; but, curiously enough, the geographical 

 difference of coloration is just the reverse of what it is in Europe 

 the species with a deep rufous breast, S. canadensis, being that which 

 has the most northern range, while the white-bellied S. carolinensis, 

 with its western form, S. aculeata, inhabits more southern latitudes. 

 The Ethiopian Eegion seems to have no representative of the group, 

 unless it be the Hypositta corallirostris of Madagascar. Callisitta and 

 Dendrophila are nearly allied genera, inhabiting the Indian Eegion, 

 and remarkable for their beautiful blue plumage ; but some doubt 

 may for the present be entertained as to the affinity of the Australian 

 Sittdla, with four or five species, found in one or another part of 

 that continent, which doubt is increased by the late Mr. W. A. 

 Forbes's discovery (Proc. Zool Soc. 1882, pp. 569-571) that the genera 

 AcantUdositta (SPINEBILL) and Xenicus, peculiar to New Zealand, 

 and hitherto generally placed in the Family Sittidas, belong really 

 to the Mesomyodian group and are therefore far removed from it. 

 The true Sittidse seem to be intermediate between the Paridse 

 (TITMOUSE) and the Certhiidas (TREECREEPER), and some authors 

 comprehend them in either one or the other of those groups. 



NUTMEG-BIED, the dealers' name in common use for Munia 

 pundulata (COWRY-BIRD, page 108), but apparently of somewhat 

 recent origin. 



