This brings me to the Sittidce or Nuthatches — birds that 

 "hack" or "cut" nuts, perpetuating an error so far as this family 

 is concerned.* In Tomtit (Ohio Valley) and Sap.nicker (Mary- 

 land) for these birds, other errors are indicated. BufTon's 

 Torchepot ("pot-cleaner") perhaps alludes to the smutty black 

 of the face. Chipinenee is a good name I have heard in South- 

 ern Massachusetts, describing its well-known note very accurately. 



* Though it is true enough that it is an "error" so far as the general woodland habits 

 of the Sittidm in the United States are concerned, yet I know of opposing instances. 

 For example ; My neighbor in New Haven this winter has been accustomed to feed 

 a colony of gray squirrels by placing nuts of various sorts on his window-ledge, whither 

 they go after them. The Nuthatches discovered, and two or three came regularly all 

 winter, feeding upon the broken nuts and often flying away with large fragments in their 

 beaks.' They would frequently place a nut in a corner of the window-frame, where 

 it would rest firmly, and then hammer at it with their pickax-beaks most sedulously, 

 breaking the shells of the lighter sorts, and crushing the inner septa of the heavy kinds 

 like hickory nuts. They did not seek worms, but fed greedily upon the substance of 

 the nut-kernel. 



Bull, N.O.O, S.Apil. 1883. p. 7^ ~ 7 7- 



Bay State Oologist.iSog- White-brcasted Nuthatch. Bj J. W. Jacobs Ibid v^r . 



-Nesting habits. ^ PP- 3-4- Auk, Vn. j^^ 



Mf. 1890. p. W ' 



511. The NidificatioH of Nutlmtchcs. By W. W. Dunlop. /^/V/., pp f_, 



122.123,137,138. Oan. Sport, &NatiaraUefc v»/.ir. "^"^ - 



703- White-bellied Nuthatch. Bj L. R. Rich. 75/^. p ,i _it, nest 

 and eggs, taken at Saratoga, N. Y. . described. O, & O- Vol.VHi 



1939. Nesting of the White-breasted Nuthatch. By J. Warren Jacobs. JT. , 



No. 10, October, 188S, pp. 119-120. ' " O legist, yoi. -r. 



346. Notes from Maryland Bj Edgar A. Small //./,/ vi p ^, A 

 —Nesting of White-bellied Nuthatch reported, with note- on the brccdim. C% 

 of other .species. 



1030. Notes on the White-breasted Nuthatch. {Silta carolinensis ) 

 By John II. Steele, /bid, No 4, p. 26. Band. NotSB Nat. Hifl, U 

 2010. White-breasted Nuthatcli. js.. d. , 



No. 2. March, 1888 [,p. 5]- ^ SooBisr S&turaUBt. 



4 0. 



