THREE UNPUBLISHED PAPERS BY BLYTH. 205 



shells soon accumulate around, so the Nuthatch has been observed 

 to resort habitually to the same suitable crevice in a tree.* It 

 has also the hoarding instinct, like the Parida, Corvidee, &c., as has 

 been observed of it both wild and in captivity ; and for a nesting- 

 place it selects a hole in a tree, the entrance of which, if too 

 large, it contracts with mason-work of clay. Eggs six or seven, 

 white, rufous-speckled ; and the bird, when disturbed sitting, 

 makes a formidable sounding hissing noise at the intruder.! 

 Such are no doubt the habits of most of the other species ; but 

 S. syriaca is remarkable for frequenting rocks only, and never 

 trees. t In climbing, these birds make much use of the real heel 

 as a support. They roost with the head downward. Four species 

 have been discovered in N. America, and three in Europe, all 

 different from those of India. 



S. FORMOSA, Blyth, J. A. S. xii. 938, 1007.— This species is 

 unique among the Nuthatches for its size and beauty. Colour 

 black above, spotted with ultramarine on the crown and back ; 

 the wing-coverts and tertiaries broadly tipped and margined 

 partially with white ; fore part of the wing, scapularies, rump, 

 and upper tail-coverts bright lavender-blue ; rectrices, great alars 

 and their coverts margined with the same, extending nearly over 

 the middle pair of rectrices ; outermost pair of rectrices broadly, 



* In confinement, according to Becbstein, turned loose in a room, its 

 manner of breaking the husks of the hemp- seed and oats which are given it 

 for food is curious and remarkable. Taking as many as it can in the beak, 

 and ranging them in order along the cracks in the floor, so disposing them 

 that they may be broken with facility, it then proceeds to despatch them one 

 after another with the greatest ease and agility. The common British Nut- 

 hatch is a remarkably bold and active bird, in the wild state more fearless 

 than familiar, and even if shot at and missed appears in general not in the 

 least disconcerted, or perhaps merely flies chirruping to the next tree, and 

 resimies its occupation as before. It displays the same fearlessness when 

 captured and placed in a cage, losing no time in fruitless and sullen vexation, 

 but — regardless of being looked at — eats voraciously of whatever food is 

 suppUed, and then proceeds deliberately to destroy its prison, piercing the 

 woodwork, and effecting its deliverance fi-om a stout cage of the ordinary 

 make in a wonderfully short space of time. One caught in a common brick 

 trap, such as boys set in England, was found to have fairly ground its bill 

 to about two-thirds of the proper length in its persevering efforts to escape. 

 f The SittellcB, it is remarkable, nidificate in the fork of a tree. 

 X Sitta syriaca (or a species allied in habit) is common in Afghanistan, 

 and thence would extend westward to the S.E. of urope. Vide J. A. S, 

 xvi. 782, 



