Nuthatches 



743 



are more nimble or active than they. Their plumage is compact, ordinarily 

 of plain colors, the prevailing hues being light slaty blue or bluish gray above, 

 the top of the head often different, and whitish, rusty, or buffy below ; the sexes 

 are alike or but slightly different in coloration, and the young resemble the female. 



While not strictly gregarious the Nuthatches are sociable birds, usually ob- 

 served in pairs or small troops and often in attendance on the miscellaneous 

 assemblages of Warblers, Titmice, and Kinglets met with in the woods. Most 

 of the species frequent woodland, especially the high, open forests, and are oftener 

 seen on large trees than on undergrowth, though certain Old World forms inhabit 

 more open, treeless country where they frequent rocks and cliffs. They are 

 in almost constant motion, running up and down the trunks of trees and peering 

 into every crack and crevice for their food, which consists principally of insects 

 and their larvae, although they also subsist to a considerable extent on nuts 

 such as the beechnut, which they wedge into a crack in the bark and reduce 

 by repeated blows of the bill, whence their name, a supposed corruption of 

 Nuthack. They are generally very tame and unsuspicious birds, allowing a near 

 approach of man, and during the cold months often coming to the vicinity of 

 habitations to feed upon scraps of meat thoughtfully placed for them. The 

 Nuthatches have nothing that can be properly called a song, their voice being 

 mostly harsh, abrupt, and unmelodious, though the notes of some of the Old 

 World representatives are described as a " clear, ringing trill." In the typical 

 forms the nests are placed in a cavity, usually a hole in a tree, but also in crevices 

 in rocks, the nest proper being made of hair, feathers, leaves, etc. Most of the 

 Old World species wall up the entrance with mud, having only an opening barely 

 large enough for them to slip in by ; while others, as the Rock Nuthatch, make 

 a more or less cone-shaped nest entirely of mud ; none of the New World forms 

 employs mud in the nest building. The eggs are usually from five to eight in 

 number, white or creamy white speckled with reddish brown. The Nuthatches 

 are mostly resident where found, though some of the more northern species 

 move slightly southward in winter. 



The Sittida as here restricted embrace about sixty species and subspecies 

 included in four genera, and are distributed pretty well throughout the world 

 except in the neotropical and Ethiopian regions. The typical Nuthatches, 

 numbering some forty forms, are comprised in the genus Sitta, which is char- 

 acterized by having the mantle and back bluish gray. Of these, four species 

 and half a dozen subspecies are natives of North America, only one reaching as 

 far south as southern Mexico. Perhaps the commonest and best-known is the 

 White-breasted Nuthatch (S. carolinensis) of the eastern United States and the 

 British provinces, where it is generally resident throughout the year; it is known 

 by having the top of the head and the upper part of the back shining black, 

 and the sides of the head and the under parts white. Its familiar, hoarse cry 

 of yank, yank, often the first notice of its presence, is heard in open woods and 

 orchards. Its five geographical races carry the species over practically the whole 

 of the United States and Mexico. Somewhat similar but distinguished at once 

 by its much smaller size and the presence of black and white stripes on the side 



