Species II. SITTA VARIA. 
RED-BELLIED NUTHATCH. 
[Plate II. Fig. 4.] 
Sitta Canadensis, Briss. hi., p. 592. — Small Nuthatch, Lath, i., 651. — Sitta Varia, 
Bart. p. 289. 
This bird is mucli smaller than tlie last, measuring only four inches 
and a half in length, and eight inches in extent. In the form of its 
bill, tongue, nostrils, and in the color of the back and tail-feathers, it 
exactly agrees with the former ; the secondaries are not relieved with 
the deep black of the other species, and the legs, feet, and claws, are of 
a dusky greenish yellow ; the upper part of the head is black, bounded by 
a stripe of white passing round the frontlet ; a line of black passes 
through the eye to the shoulder; below this is another line of white; 
the chin is white ; the other under parts a light rust color ; the primaries 
and whole wings a dusky lead color. The breast and belly of the female 
is not of so deep a brown, and the top of the head less intensely black. 
This species is migratory, passing from the north, where they breed, 
to the southern states in October, and returning in April. Its voice is 
sharper, and its motions much quicker than those of the other, being so 
rapid, restless and small, as to make it a difficult point to shoot one of 
them. When the two species are in the woods together, they are easily 
distinguished by their voices, the note of the least being nearly an oc- 
tave sharper than that of its companion, and repeated more hurriedly. 
In other respects their notes are alike unmusical and monotonous. Ap- 
proaching so iiear to each other in their colors and general habits, it is 
probable that their mode of building, &c., may be also similar. 
Buffon's Torchepot du Canada, Canada Nuthatch of other European 
writers, is either a young bird of the present species, in its imperfect 
plumage, or a different sort that rarely visits the United States. If the 
figure (PL Enl. 623) be correctly colored, it must be the latter, as the 
tail and head appear of the same bluish gray or lead color as the back. 
The young birds of this species, it may be observed, have also the crown 
of a lead color during the first season ; but the tail-feathers are marked 
nearly as those of the old ones. Want of precision in the figures and 
descriptions of these authors, makes it difficult to determine ; but I 
think it very probable, that Sitta Jamaicensis ?ntno?; Briss. ; the Least 
(194) 
