Notes on the White-breasted Nuthatch 35 



the bird regarded me very attentively, being evidently afraid 

 to go in while I was so close. After several starts, it finally dis- 

 appeared and in due time brought out another nut. Later I 

 examined these hickory nuts and found that they had been 

 opened by a squirrel, one of them still having some of the kernel 

 left in it, showing the marks of the nuthatch's bill. 



Every rambler afield in winter time has come across little 

 flocks of birds of several species, assembled for apparently no 

 other purpose than pure sociability. They cannot talk one 

 another's language, perhaps, but they nevertheless keep company 

 and enjoy the association. 



I remember three brown-creepers and a single white-breasted 

 nuthatch that were thus keeping company. As long as the 

 creepers were near, the nuthatch was busy running up and 

 down the tree trunks, but when they flew away it called very 

 often as if it wished for their return. This note is a yank-yank, 

 or as Wilson says a quank, quank. Thoreau writes " I hear a 

 line busy twitter, and looking up, see a nuthatch hopping along 

 and about a swamp white oak branch inspecting every side of it, 

 as readily hanging head downwards as standing upright, and then 

 it utters a distinct (/ho/z as if to attrack a companion. Indeed, 

 that other finer twitter seemed designed to keep some companion 

 in tow, or else it was like a very busy man talking to himself. 

 The companion was a single chickadee, which lisped six or eight 

 feet off." Thoreau also heard the song of the white-breasted 

 nuthatch, which he likened to " To-zvhat zvhat what what zvhat, 

 rapidly repeated, and not the usual quah quah." 



I have also heard the nuthatch singing on the island in the 

 latter days of March, but at the time likened it to its usual note 

 repeated very rapidly. 



The allied red-breasted nuthatch has been seen on the island 

 on several occasions, and on the eighteenth of February, several 

 years ago. I came at sunset to an old dogwood in which I noticed 

 a hole. I got up the tree a little way, when a red-breasted 

 nuthatch stuck its head out, but quickly retreated. Shortly it 



