92 PASSERES. 



difficult to place. They agree very closely with examples from the 

 Amoor, and are distinctly whiter than those from Southern Japan ; 

 but they are not so white as examples from Central Siberia. 



The Common Creeper is a circumpolar species, and its range 

 extends across North Americaj where it seems to be subject to the 

 same climatic variation. Tropical forms occur in the Himalayas and 

 in Mexico. 



59. SITTA C^SIA*. 



(NUTHATCH.) 



Ttpicai, Foem. 

 Sitta ccBgia, Wolf, Taschenbuch, i. p. 128 (1810). 



Abctic Foem. 

 Sitta uraknsis, Lichtenstein, Gloger's Handb. Vog. Deutschl. pp. 377, 388 

 (1834). 



Easteen Semi-aectic Foem. 

 Sitta amurensis, Swiahoe, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1871, p. 360. 



Kamtschatkan Foem. 

 Sitta albifrons, TaczanowsH, Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 1882, p. 385. 



The Nuthatch has the bill of a Woodpecker with the tail of a Tit. 



Figures : Dresser, Birds of Europe, iii. pi. 119 (typical form), 

 pi. 118 (Arctic form, but feet coloured wrong). 



The Nuthatch is a resident in all the Japanese Islands (Blakiston 

 and Pryer, Ibis, 1878, p. 236). I have an example collected by 

 Mr. Snow on the KurUe Islands. Dr. Henderson obtained it at 

 Hakodadi in October 1857 (Cassin, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 

 1858, p. 195) ; and there are two examples in the Swinhoe collection 

 from Yezzo (Swinhoe, Ibis, 1874, p. 152). There are seven examples 

 in the Pryer collection from Yokohama. 



The range of the Nuthatch extends from the British Islands across 

 Europe and Siberia to Japan and China. 



The local races of the Common Nuthatch are the despair of the 

 ornithological nomenclator. 



Sitta cmsia, a smallish bird (wing 3"15 to 3'3 in.), with chestnut 

 breast, in the British Islands and Western Europe, intergrades with 



Sitta ccBsia homeyeri in Pomerania, the Baltic Provinces of Russia, 



* According to the law of priority Sitta europtea ought to be accepted as the 

 typical form, but to avoid the absurdity of calling a Japanese bird Sitta europtsa 

 uraknsis, it is necessary to make Sitta casia the typical form. To do otherwise 

 would be misleading. 



