RED-BELLIED BLAGK-CAPT NUTHATCH. 203 
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 
is not of so deep a brown, and th<e 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 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, in its imperfect plumage, or a dif- 
ferent sort, that rarely visits the United States,— 
probably the latter, as the tail and head appear of the 
same bluish gray or lead colour as the back. The 
young birds of this species, it may be observed, have 
also the crown of a lead colour during the first season ; 
but the tail-feathers are marked nearly as those of the 
old ones. Want of precision in the figures and descrip- 
tions of these authors makes it difficult to determine ; 
but I think it very probable, that Sitta Jamaicensis 
minor, Brisson, the Least Loggerhead of Brown, Sitta 
Jamaicensis var. t. st. Linn, v and Sitta Canadensis of 
Linnseus, Gmelin, and Brisson, are names that have 
been originally applied to different individuals of the 
species we are now describing. 
This bird is particularly fond of the seeds of pine 
