THE 



WILSON BULLETIN 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 

 ORNITHOLOGY 



Vol. IX. MARCH, 1902. No. 1. 



THE ROCK NUTHATCH AND ITS NEST. 



BY H. C. TRACY. 



The Rock Nutchatch,* best known as a Syrian bird, is 

 common as far north as the Black Sea coast, not far from 

 which the following observations were made. The bird is 

 ashy-grey above, with black lores (the stripe extending to 

 the mantle region); the "impure white" of the under parts 

 changes to rust red on the belly and under tail-coverts. The 

 Rock Nuthatch is' larger than the common European Nut- 

 hatch. 



If the European bird is rightly named by the Germans, 

 Kleiber (maker of a mud-wall), the Syrian deserves not this 

 but a better title as an expert clay mixer and moulder. 

 When the climate is dry and fairly warm, an adobe house 

 is good enough for anybody. The Rock Nuthatch found 

 this out long ago. Given a little hollow place in a wall of 

 rock, facing the sun, he will fit over it a cap of mortar so 

 firm, so fast to the rock, that neither wind, nor rain, nor 

 creeping thing can break it down till long after he is through 



*Given in Brehm as Sitta neumayeri (S. syriaca, saxitalis, references, 

 etc., of other authorities). Brehm's Thier Leben, Vol. II., p. 560. 



