RED-BELLIED, BLACK-CAPPED NUTHATCH. 
41 
RED-BELLIED, BLACK-CAPPED NUTHATCH SITTA 
VARIA Plate II. Fig. 4. 
Sitta varia, Bart. p. 289. — Sitta Canadensis, Turton. — Small Nuthatch, Lath. i. 651. 
SITTA CANADENSIS Linnaeus. 
Sitta Canadensis, Bonap. Synop. p. 96. 
This bird is much smaller than the 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 colour 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 colour, the primaries and whole wings a dusky lead 
colour. The breast and belly of the female are not of so deep 
a brown, and the top of the head is 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 distin- 
guished by their voices, the note of the least being nearly an 
octave sharper than that of its companion, and repeated more 
hurriedly. In other respects, their notes are alike unmusical 
and monotonous. Approaching so near to each other in their 
colours and general habits, it is probable that their mode of 
building, &c. may be also similar. 
Buffon’s Torchepot de la Canada , ( Canada nuthatch of other 
European writers,) is either a young bird of the present species, 
