BY THE WAY BIDE 
53 
Every Wisconsin 
SCHOOL BRANCH DEPARTMENT 
School Branch is required to subscribe for at least one copy of BY THE WAYSIDE 
Letters for this department should be written on 
■only one side of the page, should give the name, age 
and address of the writer, and should be mailed by the 
first of the month; Illinois Children sending to Miss 
Ethel E. Hooper, 541 N. State St., Chicago, Ill., and 
Wisconsin Children to Miss Ruth Marshall, Appleton 
Wisconsin. An honor badge will be awarded for 
each state every month, pre erence being given to 
letters about the bird study for the month (which is 
always on this page), and to original observations. 
Any child who wit s the honor badge twice will re¬ 
ceive By The Wayside one year as a prize. 
The wren button, which is the badge of the Audu¬ 
bon Society, costs two cents, and may be bought 
from Miss Hooper or Miss Marshall. 
Any Wisconsin School Branch may, without ex¬ 
pense, have the use of the Gordon and Merrill Lib¬ 
raries of bird books, by applying to Miss Edna 
Edwards Librarian, 845 Prospect St., Appleton. 
A set of colored bird slides with a typewriter lec¬ 
ture may be rented from Prof. W. S. Marshall, 114 
E. Gorham Street, Madison, Wis. 
Illinois Schools may use, without expense, a libr¬ 
ary or a lecture with lantern slides, by applying to 
Mrs. Ruthven Deane, 504 N. State St., Chicago. 
WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH. 
The white-breasted nuthatch is a constant 
resident throughout nearly all of its geograph¬ 
ical range, which' covers eastern North Ameri¬ 
ca from the Gulf of Mexico, north to British 
America, and westward to the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains. It is easily identified by its acrobatic 
appearance, as it travels in any direction upon 
the tree trunk in its search for insect food; 
by the black and bluish-gray colors of the 
plumage of the upper parts; by the pure white 
of the plumage of the underside of the body, 
and by its peculiar nasal yank or more fre¬ 
quently a twittering note, both uttered as the 
bird creeps along the tree. The notes are ut¬ 
tered, no matter what the position of the bird 
may be. The White-breasted Nuthatch is easv 
to identify, for it “assumes attitudes no bird 
outside his family would think of attempt¬ 
ing.” 
With other members of its family, the 
White-breasted Nuthatch has the habit of 
wedging nuts, and sometimes grains of corn, 
into crevices of the bark and then hatching 
tham with strong and rapid blows of its sharp 
bill. It hammers the nuts to pieces, not for the 
purpose of eating the softer parts, but rather 
to obtain the insect larva that mav be hidden 
within. It searches diligently under the scaly 
bark, among the lichens and in the creviees 
for small insects, larvae and insect eggs which 
may be hidden there. Always searching 
through the daylight hours, during winter or 
summer, rain or shine, this interesting bird 
performs a service to the horticulturist the 
value of which cannot be estimated. With its 
near relatives it destroys a vast number of 
insects that are not captured by other birds 
The White-breasted Nuthatches are devoled 
parents and during the nesting season rarely 
go far from their home. The nest is usually 
placed in a cavity excavated by the birds in a 
tree, at a considerable height from the ground. 
I he laborious work of chiseling the excava 
tion is shared by both sexes. The cavity is 
prepared for the reception of the eggs by a 
copious lining of feathers, moss, fur and other 
soft substances that will form a soft bed.— 
From Birds and Nature. 
PRIZES AND BADGES. 
the longest bird list for 1904 has been re¬ 
ceived from Leo Egelberg. A year’s subscrip¬ 
tion to By the Wayside is sent to him in rec¬ 
ognition oi his excellent work as an observer, 
the Wisconsin badge for the month goes to 
Ruth Noel Bennett. The Illinois prize letter 
is written by Myrtle Pokorney. 
WISCONSIN PRIZE LETTER. 
Kilbourn, Wis., Dec. 26, 1904. 
Dear Wayside: 
Last winter we put out some suet on a bush 
outside the dining room window and so many 
of the birds came that we put out a basket 
on the same bushes with 1 the scraps from the 
table in it. 
A lot of the birds came. The first bird at 
the basket was a chickadee, but the blue jays 
were not long in finding it. Then there were 
nuthatches, hairy woodpeckers, downy wood¬ 
peckers and the sparrows came also. 
The blue jays were the whole thing for a 
while. Whenever a blue jay came the other 
birds flew away. But when the hairy wood¬ 
peckers came they drove the blue jays away. 
On snowy days the woodpeckers made holes 
in the bottom of the basket to get the foqd out 
of. 
After a while we made some pictures of the 
birds at the basket. One of the pictures will 
be published in The Wayside. One of the pic¬ 
tures was a blue jay with his mouth open. 
