Sitta canadensis. 
Lake Umbagog, Maine. 
si 
I860. 
Juno 6. 
1881. 
May 14. 
. • i , 
' *'■ 
\> r . 
Nest with young on tho lake shore; ontraf 
on oast side of doad maplo stub surrounded by 
height fifteen feet. An abundance of frosh p 
od just below the hole; tho nalo and female c 
nately with food at intervals of about a minut 
vraro feeding tho young entirely on Doptora whi 
caught on tho wing. 
pee hole 
rater; 
(itch smoar- 
hm© alter- 
i; they 
3 h they 
1 ■ " • ',v' ' . 
“ 27. 
Juno 3. 
10 . 82 ; 
Oct. 8—23 
vm-o 
2fe* 
Three nes t:' • 1 ' ng. In one the 'or je ,.3,- 
X 4* f;: > 3 ccavating tho rot ton wood; tho : al© keeping 
up a continual, nasal 7/hining cry. In another tho cavity 
vras Completed and tho female building n >r iiosfc• 
watched her for sometime as she crept about tho trunk 
of the arbor—vitao tearing off shreds of bark; this 
pair also vras very noisy. 
A female building her nos• in a hole whore I found 
a hast with young last year. She came and wont at 
least once a minute, uttering the finest kind of a pi¬ 
ping chirp as she flow, and apparently bringing only one 
shred of bark at a time. 
^Out open two nests whic' rare found on tho 14th. 
One which' the birds -ore then excavating, was smoothly 
finished to-day, but there was no nost and no pitch. ^To 
tho other the 'female was carrying bark on the 14th; this 
nest was finished to-day but contained no eggs and had 
but little pitch. both birds, ho >vor, wore there, 
and both wore-br ingin g pitch and plastering it on the 
bark below tho hole. I v/atchod thorn a long time. They 
.brought it on the tips of their bills in little globules, 
alighted against tho lower edge of the hole, and then 
tapped it on in various places as low as they could 
reach, but without shifting their foothold. 
Nest composed of fine **»*<*© strips of soft, inner 
fir bark. 
Abundant during tho early part of my stay and soon 
spari. ly up to its close (I shot ono October 21). 
or two—rarely more however—wore always to bo foune. in 
a "mixed flock- . 
Host in a tall, very rotton ash stub at least fifty 
foot above tho water. We were obliged to cut down tho 
tree. It broke off at the nost wh n it struck, and .all 
'the eggs but one wore destroyed. As usual there was 
a hor, vy coating of pitch about 
about six days. 
:.ho hole; eggs incubated 
