AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 57 



to our Americans forms, resembling them in many of his habits. In 

 ■studying the literature of trans-Atlantic species we at once stumble 

 upon the reason for calling this avian family by the somewhat peculiar 

 and apparently inapt name of nuthatch. The older English form of the 

 word was "nuthack," which unfortunately has been changed to "nu- 

 thatch," a word that gives an erroneous impression, for no bird ever 

 hatches a nut. But with the last syllable "hack" the difftculty is all 

 ■cleared up, as his habit of hacking or chipping nuts, which he places in 

 chinks of the bark or wall, is well known. 



The nuthatch of England belongs to the species just named. He 

 ■does not wear a black hood or mantle, but merely a black ribbon on 

 the side of his head, enclosing the eye. His upper parts are bluish- 

 gray, save the outer tail feathers, which are black; his cheeks and 

 throat are white, his breast and belly buff, and his flanks and lower 

 tail-coverts chestnut red. A graphic English writer, Dr. W. H. Hud- 

 son, gives the following enthusiastic description of the little tobogganist 

 ■of his native woodlands: 



"When I see him sitting quite still for a few moments on a branch 

 of a tree in his most characteristic nuthatch attitude, on or under the 

 Taranch, perched horizontally or vertically, with head or tail uppermost, 

 iDut always with the body placed beetle-wise against the bark, head 

 raised, and the straight, sharp bill pointed like an arm lifted to denote 

 attention. At such times he looks less like a living than a sculptured 

 "bird, a bird cut out of beautifully variegated marble — blue gray, buff 

 and chestnut, and placed against the tree to deceive the eye. The 

 figure is so smooth and compact, the tints so soft and stonelike; and 

 when he is still, he is so wonderfullystill, and his attidude so statuesque! 

 Eut he is never long still, and when he resumes his lively, eccentric, 

 up-and-down and side-wise motions, he is interesting in another way. 

 He is like a small woodpecker who has broken loose from the wood- 

 pecker's somewhat narrow laws of progression, preferring to be a law 

 Tinto himself. 



Without a touch of brilliant color, the nuthatch is a beautiful bird on 

 account of the pleasing softness and harmonious disposition of his 

 tints; and, in like manner, without being a songster in the strict sense 

 ■of the word, his voice is so clear and far-reaching and of so pleasing a 

 a quality, that it often gives more life and spirit to the woods and 

 orchards and avenues he frequents than that of many true melodists. 

 This is more especially the case in the month of March, before the 

 migratory songsters have arrived, when he is most loquatious. A high 

 pitched; clear, ringing note, repeated without variation several times, 

 is his most often-heard call or song. He will sometimes sit motion- 



