386 NU'J‘llA’I‘CllES AND TITS.

only thing in the world he ever cared for. and that his one object in life is to find it. Ignoring you completely. with scarcely a pause, he winds his way in a preoccupied. near-sighted manner up a tree trunk. Having finally reached the top of his spiral staircase. one might sup- pose he would rest long enough to survey his surroumlings, but. like a bit of loosened bark he drops otf to the base of the nearest tree and resumes his never-ending,r task.

He has no time to waste in words, but occasionally, without stop- ping in his rounds, he utters a few sweeping, squeaky notes, which are about as likely to attract attention as he is himself. As for song, one would say it was quite out of the question ; but Mr. Brewster,* in his biography of this bird, tells us that in its summer home, amid the northern spruces and firs, it has an exquisitely pure, tender song of four notes, “ the first of moderate pitch, the second lower and less emphatic, the third rising again, and the last abruptly falling, but dying,r away in an indescribably plaintive cadence, like the soft sigh of the wind among the pine boughs.”

FAMILY PARIDE. NUTHATCHES AND TITS.

Two well-marked subfamilies are included here. the Silli‘nm, or Nuthatehes, and l’arinw, or Chickadces. They are distributed through- out the temperate parts of the northern hemisphere. About twenty species of Nuthatches are known, of which four are American. They are all climbers, but, unlike the Woodpeckers and Creepers, climb downward as well as upward, and do not use their tails as a support. Their name is derived from their habit of wedging nuts (with our species, usually beechnuts) in a crevice in the bark and then hatching them by repeated strokes with their bill.

The subfamily Purina? contains some seventy—five species, of which no less than fifty, including the thirteen North American species, be- longr in the genus Paras. Both our Nuthatches and Chickadees are migratory at the northern parts of their range. After the migration they are generally found in small groups, composed probably of the members of a family, which wander through the woods within certain

definite limits. any To THE SPECIES. A. Throat black. (1. (‘rown brown: sides chestnut . . . . . 740. Ill‘nsosny CHICKADEE. b. (frown black: outer margin of greater wing-eoverts distinctly whitish; CHICKADEE.

wing generally over 2'50 . . c. (‘rown black; greater wing-em'erts without white margins; wing under 2'50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736. CAROLINA CIHCKADEE.

* Bull. Nutt. Om. Club, iv, 1870. pp. 199—209.