568 ANIMAL LIFE IN TEE YOSEMITE 



brood. These observations, added to our knowledge of other species of 

 birds, indicate that only accurate observation of a species through the 

 nesting season will establish the exact relations existing in that species 

 between the sexes and between the adults and the young. It is unsafe 

 to attempt to predict the behavior of one species from consideration of 

 the known habits of other, even near-related, species. 



Another nest of the Slender-billed Nuthatch was seen on May 23, 1915, 

 in a dead blue oak near Piney Creek not far from Pleasant Valley. The 

 two parent birds were busily engaged in capturing and carrying insects 

 to the young. The presence of a member of our party 6 feet below the 

 nest caused obvious anxiety upon the part of the two members of the 

 pair who flew back and forth for twenty minutes before one of them 

 became courageous enough to enter and feed the brood. Soon after the 

 first had left, the other parent fed the young. Each again filled its bill 

 full of insects, but neither would venture into the nest a second time ; they 

 flew back and forth uttering their curious little notes, and in so doing 

 did not seem to find it necessary to open the bill at all. 



Red-breasted Nuthatch. Sitta canadensis Linnaeus 



Field characters. — Half size of Junco; tail about half length of body. Top and 

 sides of head, black in male, slaty in female; a white stripe over eye in both sexes; 

 back slate gray; under surface of body reddish brown. (See pi. 10^.) "Hitches" 

 about in all directions on bark of trees. Voice: A piping nasal M, uttered singly or in 

 measured series. 



Occurrence. — Common in summer in Canadian Zone (less plentiful in Transition and 

 Hudsonian zones) on west flank of Sierra Nevada. Eecorded in that season from Smith 

 Creek (at 3000 feet altitude east of Coulterville), and from near Chinquapin, eastward 

 to Tuolumne Meadows. Found on east slope of mountains (Walker Lake) in Septem- 

 ber. In Yosemite Valley practically throughout the year. Lives on trunks and branches 

 of conifers, usually in the upper halves of the trees. Solitary. 



Often when the traveler is following a trail through a forest there 

 comes to his ear from the lofty tree tops the quaint nasal call of the Red- 

 breasted Nuthatch, sounding like the blast of an elfin horn. With careful 

 search he may locate a small form moving about the trunk and branches 

 at the tiptop of a tree. If luck favors and the observer is patient the bird 

 may eventually come low enough so that the black on its head, the white 

 stripe over the eye, the bluish gray back, the reddish brown under sur- 

 face, and the very short, squared tail will all be seen and the identification 

 rendered certain. 



The center of abundance of the Red-breasted Nuthatch lies within the 

 Canadian Zone, but some of the birds are to be found in the zone above 

 and in that below. The seasonal status of the species is not fully known. 

 In Yosemite Valley, which is in the Transition Zone, it is present con- 



