173 
4 
with ; and as regards the northern portion of that country, it is, according to Borggreve, “a 
wanderer or partial migrant, but only common in the non-evergreen woods on the plains. In 
the mountains, however, it ranges up to the border of beech-growth.” In Holland and Belgium 
it is common and sedentary, and, according to Degland and Gerbe, equally numerous in almost 
all the large woods of France and Switzerland. Jaubert and Barthélemy-Lapommeraye record it 
from Provence, where the same may be said of its occurrence and as regards its range as in other 
parts of France. In Portugal it is, according to Professor Barboza du Bocage, likewise common, 
though in Spain it appears to be rather local. Lord Lilford met with it there “commonly ;” but 
Mr. Howard Saunders includes it in his notes on the birds of Southern Spain as “a very local 
species,” Granada, where it was common, being the only place where it came under his notice. 
As regards this species in Switzerland my friend Dr. Girtanner, of St. Gallen, in a letter lately 
received, writes that “it is a common species everywhere in the lowlands and mountains of 
Switzerland, but it is not reckoned amongst the Alpine birds; it breeds twice in the year, making 
its nest in hollow trees or boxes hung up for the Starlings, and plasters up the entrance-hole with 
mud, leaving a small circular entrance just large enough to allow the old bird to pass in and out. 
The nest inside (if nest it can be termed) is merely a bed of dry beech-leaves. The Nuthatch is 
a favourite bird with us in Switzerland, where it is certainly found breeding as high up in the 
mountains as the Alpine forests, where it feeds. on beech-nuts and seeds of the Pinus cembra and 
fir, and collects and stores a supply of food (as it likewise does when in confinement); it will 
deposit large quantities of hemp-seed, hazel-nuts, &c. behind a piece of bark, and continually go 
to look after them. It is amusing to watch a Nuthatch work a nut into a crack in the bark 
until it is fixed there, and work at it until the shell is broken. A few Nuthatches remain with 
us over the winter.” From Italy I have in my collection several specimens sent to me by Count 
Salvadori, who states that it is there a common bird; and Professor Doderlein writes that it is 
‘“‘common and sedentary in Sicily, as also in the country about Modena.” Mr. A. Basil Brooke 
also informs me that it is “moderately common in Savoy, in the neighbourhood of St. Michel, 
where I observed it during winter. It has not yet, so far as I am aware, been discovered in the 
Island of Sardinia.” In Greece it is, according to Lindermayer, “‘ resident in the northern portion 
of the country, but it does not occur on the islands;” and ina letter I have received from Dr. 
Kriiper, he informs me that he found it common in the woods of Acarnania and /Mtolia, as also 
in the mountains of Parnassus and Olympus. Messrs. Elwes and Buckley record it as numerous 
in Macedonia and near Constantinople; and I myself met with it commonly in Austria, Styria, 
and the countries skirting the Danube, in all suitable localities, and especially numerous in the 
oak-woods of Wallachia and Servia. A Nuthatch is referred to by Ménétries as common in the 
forests of Lenkoran, which I think may be the present species. It is said to occur in Asia Minor; 
and Dr. Kriiper informs me tliat his hunter declared that he had seen it in the woods near Smyrna, 
but that he himself never met with it there. Canon Tristram found it in Palestine, where a 
specimen was shot by Mr. Bartlett in a wooded glen under Hermon; and it was afterwards met 
with in the Lebanon. In North-east Africa it does not occur; but Loche records it from Algeria, 
where, he states, it is not common, but he met with it in the territory of Beni-Menassed, where 
it is sedentary. It has furthermore been included in the earlier lists of the birds of the Canaries; 
but Dr. C. Bolle considers that it does not really occur there. Concerning its range in Asia 
