:1881. 
Sitta canadensis. 
Maine (Lake Umbagog). 
May 14. 
Three nests building. In one the female was busi- 
Ijr at 'ffork excavating the rotton wood; the male keeping 
up a continual nasal whining cry. In another the cavity 
v/as completed and the female building her nest. Wo 
watched her for sometime as she crept about the trunk 
of the arbor-vitae tearing off shreds of bark; this 
pair also v/as very noisy. 
26. A female building her nest in a hole v/here I found 
a nest v/'ith young last year. She came and went at 
least once a minute, uttering the finest kind of a pi¬ 
ping chirp as she flev;, and apparently bringing only one 
! shred of bark at a time. 
27. „ Cut open tv/o nests v;hich v;ere found on the 14th. 
j; One which the birds were then excavating, vras smoothly 
I’ finished to-day, but there v;as no nest and no pitch. To 
' the other the female was carrying bark on the 14th; this 
nest was finished to-day but contained no eggs and had 
ij but little pitch. Both birds, hov;ever, v;ore there, 
jl and both wore brin^iinu pitch and plastering it on the 
!; bark below the hole. I v/'atched them a long time. They 
brought it on the tips of their bills in little globules, 
alighted against the lov;er edge of the hole, and then 
tapped it on in various places as low as they could 
roach, but v/ithout shifting their foothold. 
June 
3.j| Nest composed of fine inne strips of soft, inner 
fir bark. 
1882. |, 
0ct.8-22ji Abundant during the early part of my stay and seen 
i; sparingly up to its close (I shot one October 21). one 
or two—rarely more however—v/ere alv;ays to bo found in 
a "mixed flock”. 
I Nest in a tall, very rotton ash stub at least fifty 
jj feet above the v;ator. Wo were obliged to cut down the 
■ tree. It broke off at the nest wh n it struck and all 
ij the eggs but one were destroyed. As usual there vms 
a hea vy coating of pitch about the hole; eggs incubated 
about six davs. 
1880-, 
May 29 
