ttbe Warbler 



5 1 



sorbed bird calls out most musically and cheerily his reasonant, — " Here- 

 here-here-here-here ; " and the two are soon again beside each other ; meeting, 

 under such circumstances, with a frequent tremulous spreading of the fore- 

 wings. Like most other birds that are " racially-sedentary " these Nut- 

 hatches nest late. And they are quite as fugitive in this same nesting as are 

 most birds of their sort. The call of the Nuthatch is frequent enough, dur- 

 ing the neutral seasons of the year. But when nesting time approaches 

 both birds would seem to be well aware of the unwisdom of betraying the 

 whereabouts of the home-that-is-to-be by any unwary sounding of their little 



FIGURE I. — ROCKY-MOUNTAIN NUTHATCH 



trumpets. Yet after the eggs are laid and the sitter begins to sit and the 

 male is all attention he seems to forget, in what one may judge to be the 

 tender joy of his service, the caution that is due to the cunning and the cov- 

 etous. His call to his mate will hence resound widely and iteratedly even 

 though he be far from home ; only the booty in his beak betraying the object 

 of his earnestness. At and after this point in the episode of family rearing 

 both Nuthatches are as unsophisticate as any young human couple ; betray- 

 ing their mutual tenderness by calls and wheedlings and curious caresses in 

 any and all sorts of places. (Among the hardly-translatable cries and calls 



