22 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 94 



with his back to the female. His head is set squarely back 

 on his shoulders, with the beak parallel to the axis of the 

 body. His whole body is raised and bent backward a little, 

 the wings slightly open, with the tips dropped below the ex- 

 panded tail. During- the song, he slowly tilts the forepart of 

 his body downward and the hinder part upward. If perched 

 on a small branch, he may turn almost upside down. He 

 straightens up to the erect position in silence, then tilts slowly 

 forward while he repeats his song. He continues the delib- 

 erate tilting over and over again, always singing as he lowers 

 his head and shoulders. The songs follow each other very 

 regularly, with an interval between each one about equal to 

 the duration of the song. The courting song can be recog- 

 nized by this feature of regular, ad libitum repetition. 



On other occasions the male approaches the female and, 

 facing her, struts before her silently or with a low "chuck" ; 

 his neck is elongated, his crown feathers are flattened. This 

 attitude is apparently identical to that used to intimidate the 

 Sparrows. 



Besides the courting song, our Nuthatch has two songs 

 which are perfectly distinct. One of these, the more com- 

 mon one, is very similar in form to the song of the Flicker. 

 It consists of eight or ten notes, all on one pitch (often the 

 D next but one above middle C), each with a slight upward 

 inflection ; from a distance it suggests a man whistling- to a 

 dog; when heard near at hand, however, the notes have a 

 deep, rich, woodeny resonance, with no whistle quality. These 

 notes have been rendered by various syllables, for example, 

 " hah-hah-hah," etc. (Chapman), " tway," etc. (Langille), 

 "what," etc. (F. H. Allen, Bird-Lore, Vol. XIV, p. 317), 

 "too," etc. (Hoffman). Although these syllables do not bear 

 the slightest resemblance to each other, they are all, never- 

 theless, good renderings of the White-breasted Nuthatch's 

 song, for the reason that they represent the song heard from 

 different distances. Hofifman's "too" (" whoot," I think is 

 still better) suggests the song heard near by, Langille's 

 " twav " from far ofif, while the two other renderings recall 



