Sitta canadensis. 
60 
1871. I! 
May 30- • |j 
June 10. 
1872. 
June 2- 
14. > 
1873. 
Sept o22. 
1879. 
Juno 23. 
1880. 
May 19. 
“ 20.1 
Juno 5. 
Maine (Lake Umbagog). 
Rather common but silent and retiring. 
More numerous than last year but by no moans abun¬ 
dant. Although all the species taken wore adults their 
notes at this season are uttored in a high nasal tone 
1 not heard in autumn and are kept up incessantly like the 
cries of young birds. 
They have become abundant v/ithin the last fey/ days. 
Sav/ one catching flies precisely in the manner of 
Sphvrapicus . 
Set A-6. — Incubated several days; nest in red 
maple stub over water; tree very rotton; height about 
tv/onty feet; hole on West side about tv/o feet from 
top. A quantity of pitch, which my guide pronouneed 
I unmistakably spruce , about the entrance and inside its 
tunnel. Stub standing in five’- foot of v/ator twenty 
I yards from the shore, v/hich v/as heavily forested with 
! hemlock, spruce, and hard woods. Female sitting; 
she would come out v/hen v/e rapped on the stub but almost 
immediately return to her eggs. 
While my guide was cutting off the stub about tv/o 
! feet belov/ the hols, she repeatedly alighted at its 
entrance. 
■ Set B-7. — Incubated about four days. Birch stub, 
j in the woods bordering Cambridge River. Height tv/enty 
I feet. Spruce gum thickly smeared about the entrance 
I of the hole and over the whole face of the stub for a 
distance of six inches. Nest composed of the fine inner 
bark of the poplar. Our attention v/as dravm to this 
nest by hearing the birds uttering a peculiar, continu¬ 
ous v/hining noise. This v/as apparently the call of the 
male to his mate for she soon emerged from the hole an- 
sv/ering him y/hon both v/ent off together. The stump was 
so rotton that we had to cut it down. The top broke 
off falling into a brush heap belov/, cracking some of the 
I eggs, but breaking none of them. Shortly afterwards 
I the female returned and in evident bev/ilderment hovered 
in the air over the spot v/here the tree had stood, vain¬ 
ly searching for it. 
Nest with young on the lake shore; entrance hole 
on oast side of dead maple stub surrounded by water; 
height fifteen feet. An abundance of fresh pitch smear¬ 
ed just bolov/ the hole; the male and female came alter¬ 
nately y/ith food at intervals of about a minute; they 
^ v/ere feeding the young entirely on Doptera which they 
caught on the v/ing. 
