40 THE O. & O. SEMI-ANNUAL. 
stimulated by a reward I had offered him for each distinct variety he 
would discover. It was easy to walk about in our refuge as the 
trunks of the spruce and firs were branchless for a considerable dis- 
tance, and the tops so closely interwoven protected us from the rain. 
I followed my friend, not caring to lose his guidance, in the 
depths of this almost trackless forest and we had not proceeded far 
when he eagerly beckoned me to approach. Complying with his re- 
quest, I joined him and he pointed out to me a nest about eight ft. up 
in a small spruce sapling. It was a neatly woven, compact struct- 
ure of fine greyish plant-fibres, with a few white gull feathers orna- 
menting its exterior. Just visibie above the brim, was the head and 
tail of the brooding occupant, thus admitting of an immediate, and 
positive identification. ; 
I had at last found the home of the Black-poil Warbler, amid the 
solitude of this northern sea-girt island. The bird allowed me to 
approach within a few feet of the nest, before she left it. 
Its contents were revealed to be five eggs reposing on a firm bed 
of exceedingly fine plant fibres. The eggs were rather coarse in ap- 
pearance for the genus Dendroica, being of a bluish-white ground 
color, heavily splashed with various shades of brown over the entire 
surface. 
NESTING HABITS OE THE WHITE-BELLIED 
NUTHATGH. 
Sitta Carolinensis. 
BY JAMES B. PURDY, PLYMOUTH, MICHIGAN. 
The White-bellied Nuthatch, although a common bird and known 
to almost every schoolboy, has habits during their nesting season, 
that are unknown to any one except those who are close observers 
and make birds a careful study. They usually select for their nesting 
place a hole in a tree twenty-five or thirty feet from the ground and 
always in a natural cavity, and during the construction of the nest, 
which is always performed by the female, the male bird’s entire time 
is devoted to furnishing her with food. 
