A Study of a White-Breasted Nuthatch 19 



lastly (perhaps the greatest factor in holding the birds to one 

 locality) a hole to sleep in. 



All these advantages are to be found in the center of the 

 town of Lexington, Mass. ; the broad Common is bordered 

 by ancient elms and white ash trees and on some of the ad- 

 joining lawns stand trees of these species whose history ex- 

 tends back nearly to Colonial times. Some of the oldest trees, 

 notably the white ash, are slowly dying, and in many of their 

 dead branches Downy Woodpeckers have drilled nesting 

 holes. One of these holes, forty feet up in a gigantic ash 

 tree, was, until last spring, within sight of our window and 

 to the position of this cavity we owe much of our acquaint- 

 ance with a White-breasted Nuthatch during the past year. 



Nuthatches have to my knowledge made the vicinity of 

 Lexington Common their headquarters in spring, autumn and 

 winter for seven years. I have often seen two birds together 

 here, but never more ; occasionally a pair has nested so near 

 that we have heard the song of the male during the summer. 



In late August, 1913, a pair of Nuthatches visited our place 

 daily. The Robins, Orioles and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks 

 were rapidly stripping the cherry tree of its fruit, but as the 

 Orioles and Grosbeaks did not swallow the stones, many had 

 fallen to the roof of the piazza. The Nuthatches came for these 

 discarded cherry stones. They flew with them either to the 

 cherry tree or to one of the big white ash trees in the next 

 yard. In the cherry tree they placed the stones on a hori- 

 zontal surface, in the ash tree they wedged them into a crev- 

 ice and hammered them with their beaks, sometimes adding 

 force to the blows with a flap of the wings. They cracked 

 the stones and swallowed the kernel. When they fixed a 

 stone on an upright branch they always stood head downward 

 on the bark above the stone. Returning to the roof of the 

 porch, they often passed within arm's reach of us, so near 

 indeed that the sharp whistle of their wings reminded us of 

 a flushed Woodcock. We became so attached to the little 

 birds that after the cherry stones had been exhausted we de- 

 termined to induce the birds to remain near us. I fastened a 



