The Pygmy Nuthatches 
are soon reassembled, and there is much jolly chatter with some good- 
natured scuffling, as the confederated mischiefs swarm over the new 
field of opportunity. 
Nuthatches are not methodical, like Creepers, in their search for in¬ 
sects ; they are haphazard and happy. The branches are more attractive 
to them than the tree bole, and the dead top of the tree is most alluring 
of all. The Pygmies are never too busy to talk. The more they find the 
more excited their chatter grows, pretty lispings and chirpings quite too 
dainty for our dull ears. It makes us sigh to watch their happiness, and 
we go off muttering, “We, too, were young.” 
Again, it shocks us when we find these youngsters in knickerbockers 
and braids paired off for nesting time. Tut, tut! children, so eager 
to taste life’s heavier joys? A nest is chiselled out with infinite labor 
on the part of these tiny beaks, in the dead portion of some pine tree. 
The cavity is from four to twelve inches in depth, with an entrance 
a trifle over an inch in diameter. The owners share the taste of the 
Chickadees, and prepare an elaborate layette of soft vegetable fibers, 
fur, hair, and feathers, in which the eggs are sometimes quite smothered. 
648 
Taken in the San Jacinto Mountains 
-THE PINE TREE IS HIS HOME" 
Photo by the Author 
