Ornithology of Corsica. 441 
specimens. Giglioli, writing* in 1890, sa^s that lie saw a 
Nuthatch on September 16, 1877, at Ponte alia Leccia, but 
did not fire at it, believing it to be Sitter- cassia. In the 
spring of 1896 Dr. A. Koenig visited the forest of Vizzavona 
and with considerable difficulty obtained five specimens, but 
was too early for nests, while Mr. A. D. Sapsworth discovered 
another colony in the early autumn of 1900, and brought 
home skins. No eggs were, however, taken between 1884 
and 1908, when I was fortunate early in May in finding 
several pairs obviously breeding in pine-forest at over 
3000 ft. Beturning towards the end of the month, I took 
three nests with eggs, and found a fourth with young during 
two days spent in the forest. In 1909 two more nests with 
eggs were taken, and a third proved to contain young about 
a week old. Since then Dr. Schiebel has described the 
juvenile plumage of the male, and Ritter von TschusPs 
collector has sent skins from the Vizzavona forest. 
It is satisfactory to be able to state that the bird is in no 
danger of extermination, and is not, as Professor Giglioli 
supposed, a vanishing form, confined to one isolated locality. 
On the contrary, I have the best of reasons for believing that 
it is widely but somewhat locally distributed in the pine- 
forests of Corsica, and am aware of at least three localities, all 
at considerable distances apart, in which the bird is tolerably 
common. Owing to the broken nature of the ground and 
the scarcity of roads, it is extremely difficult to explore the 
country systematically, and as the Nuthatch spends most of 
its time among the upper branches of the pines, so small a 
bird is very easily overlooked except by those who are well 
acquainted with its notes and habits. The nests, too, are, as 
a rule, only obtainable with difficulty and a considerable 
amount of danger, for the wood is not soft enough for the 
somewhat weak bill of this species to work until the tree is 
advanced in decay. Such trees have generally lost all their 
bark and stand out like bare white masts among the living- 
trees. As a rule, they are rotten at the base, but being 
sheltered from the wind by their neighbours and offering 
little resistance owing to the absence of side branches, they 
