80 JOHN N. CLARK. 



REMARKS ABOUT THE WHITE BELLIED NUTHATGH 

 (SITTA CAROLINENSIS). 



By John N. Clark. 



Perhaps among our common birds there is no more interesting 

 speeies than the little white Bellied Nuthatch Sitta carolinensis with 

 their odd ways and quaint and peculiar notes. An inimitable gymnast, 

 travelling with equal ease upward or downward, perching on the branch 

 or under, it everywhere at home like a fly on the ceiling, always busy, 

 always contented, the same in Summer's heat or Winter's cold, skipping 

 along in short leaps instead of Walking over the trank and among the 

 branches of the trees, peeping into every crack or crevice in the bark, 

 under every sprig of moss or liehen and woe betide the Caterpillar moth 

 or chrysalis however carefully concealed therein. I was very much 

 amused last winter with watching a pair of birds of this speeies in an 

 Oak tree near my house that had numbers of acorns which they would 

 gather and secure in some crevice, then peck at the shell tili they ob- 

 tained the meat within, this was a frequent oecurence during the cold 

 weather. The mature birds always go mated at all seasons of the year ; 

 1 never saw a bird of this speeies alone, if one is seen be sure the mate 

 is not far away, and I do not remember seeing more than a pair except it 

 were a family of young and yet they are social birds almost invariably 

 keeping in Company with more or less Titmice and Woodpeckers. 



It is a pretty little bird neatly though not gaily dressed,. with a 

 mantle of soft bluish ash, a glossy black crown which extends down the 

 nape, the throat and under parts white as are also the cheeks extending 

 on the sides of the neck and over the eye in sharp contrast with the 

 black of the crown, the under tail coverts and flanks are rusty brown. 

 The tail which is very short and broad extending but little beyond the 

 long pointed wings, consists of twelve feathers, the outer ones black at 

 the base and tips with a broad patch of white between, the next three 



