AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 171 



the order in that vicinity spent their nights in social and mutual warmth 

 and comfort. Their palatial lodging was a great yellow pine that had 

 been dead so long that its bark had disappeared. There was a weather 

 or wind crack in its trunk just by the side of a knot, about ten feet from 

 the ground, which served as the front door to the lodgings, and as it 

 opened to the east by a quarter south it would get the first rays of dawn 

 as they lighted the woods in that vicinity. 



By some chance I stopped near this tree, and while standing there a 

 lone Nuthatch alighted upon the knot, went into the crack and out of 

 sight. He had hardly disappeared before a second one alighted in the 

 same place and vanished within the same doorway. Number two had 

 scarcely gone before number three appeared upon the scene and fol- 

 lowed the other two. I became interested at once and determined to 

 see the end of this ornithological procession and stood attentively 

 watching. 



They continued to arrive, singly, as if by predetermined appointment, 

 one after another until twenty-nine had come and disappeared within 

 the spacious apartments of this one coniferous aviarian domicile, and at 

 no time during all the lodgment of these twenty-nine birds, did two ar- 

 rive at the same time, nor was there a variation in the time of the ap- 

 pearance of any two birds of more than thirty seconds. Such clock 

 like punctuality seemed marvelous to me, and is but another instance of 

 the remarkable development of the faculty, if I may so term it, of time 

 in birds. 



Unfortunately I never had an opportunity to follow up my observa- 

 tions in this matter, and cannot say whether this gregarious habit of 

 lodging with the White-breasted Nuthatch, is a local or a national trait, 

 neither can I tell you whether these birds were all of one family or 

 many; whether they got up in the orderly and chronological manner in. 

 which they went to bed, nor yet if they occupied the same lodgings the 

 following winter together with their summer's posterity, and least of 

 all whether when the tree became unsafe from the decay of its roots, 

 they sought out some other and safer habitation for their winter ren- 

 dezvous. G. v. HARVfcV, M. D. Watsonville, Cal. 



It should be noted that one of the best methods of attracting birds is 

 to have sunflowers planted near the house. In the fall these will fur- 

 nish abundant food and quite a variety of birds will be observed im- 

 proving the opportunity thus afforded them. In a small garden plot a 

 few feet from my study windows, I have a considerable number of sun- 

 flowers. Last fall long after they had lost their brightness, they con- 

 tinued to draw large numbers of birds. I was particularly interested 



