486 ECONOMIC EELATIONS OF OUR BIRDS. 
16. SiTTA Carolinensis, Gm. WHITE-BELLIED NUTHATCH. Group I. 
Class b. 
This species is another of those birds whose possibilities for usefulness appear 
to be among the highest; but it is one which can hardly attain, under present 
management, that abundance in thickly settled districts which could be desired. 
It has conclusively proved its desire to assume familiar relations with man, and 
this with only the slightest encouragement. The orchard, ornamental, and shade 
trees, as well as the groves and scattered patches of woods of thickly settled dis¬ 
tricts, offer it an ample supply of food and need its protection; but few yet appear 
to realize that if these birds are to become abundant and of seiwice, they must have 
places in which to rear their young. They usually place tlieir nests in holes in 
trees and stumps, which they find ready formed, or excavate for themselves. It 
is usually regarded as in harmony with thrifty husbandry, in gathering the year s 
fuel, to select from the woods those trees which give evidence of decay. Such 
an economy, however, if carried to an extreme, will ultimately leave the Nut¬ 
hatches and Woodpeckers, and all of those species which breed in hollow trees, 
without nesting places, and will necessarily extirpate them from sections so 
modified, and deprive the country of their services, except so far as some of 
these birds may be able to form new habits wliich are more in harmony with the 
altered conditions. The practical questions which these facts suggest are these: 
Are the services of this class of bii*ds sufficiently great to justify the preserva¬ 
tion of their nesting places? Is it probable that these birds can so modify their 
habits as to place themselves in harmony with the new features which our coun¬ 
try is assuming so rapidly ? That this Nuthatch gathem its food from a field 
where some of our most destructive insects abound, there can be no question. 
In proof of this, it need only be said that almost its whole time is spent search¬ 
ing about and upon the trunks and larger branches of trees in quest of insects, 
and that in such situations as these the wingless female of the canker-worm, the 
larvae and pupae of the codling moth, the adults of the round-headed and flat¬ 
headed apple-tree borers, and a host of nocturnal moths and other insects may 
be destroyed by it. That the particular insects which have been mentioned are 
so destroyed cannot be asserted positively at present, yet it is highly pi'obable 
that they are, for its record of food, meagre as it is, proves that it does feed 
upon closely allied forms. 
In regard to the other question little can be said at present. The fact, how¬ 
ever, that the Nuthatch does not always excavate the holes for its nest indicates 
that it is not very particular, and gives some grounds for the hope that it may 
yet be induced to breed commonly in groves and orchards. Wilson states that 
it sometimes nests in hollow rails in fences, and in the wooden cornice undei the 
eaves of houses. When an old tree is cut down, whose branches are hollow and 
have been occupied by these or other birds, it would be very desirable, by way of 
experiment, to fasten the perforated portions of the limbs in other trees to as¬ 
certain whether they might not in those conditions still be used by birds as bleed¬ 
ing jilaces. The same experiment might be tried in orchards. Should they 
prove acceptable to the birds there would then be no need of allowing all de¬ 
caying trees to stand for this purpose. 
Food: Of twenty-five specimens examined, fourteen had eaten thirty-two 
beetles_among which were three elaters, one long-horn and a lady-bug (?); one, 
‘ two ants; one, two caterpillars; one, two grubs of a beetle; one, a spider; one, 
a chrysalid; one, small toad-stools; five, acorns; and one, corn. 
According to others: Ants, bugs, insects and their larvae, spiders (Wils.). 
Larvae and eggs of insects (Samuels). Insects are its favorite food at all times. 
