NUTHATCH  , in older

English NUTHACK, from its habit of hacking or chipping nuts, which it cleverly fixes, as though in a vice, in a chink or crevice of the bark of a tree, and then hammers them with the point of its bill till the shell is broken . This bird was long thought to be the Sitta europaea of Linnaeus; but that is now admitted to be the northern form, with the lower parts white, and its buff-breasted representative in central, southern and western Europe, including England, is known as Sitta caesia . It is not found in Ireland, and in Scotland its appearance is merely accidental . Without being very plentiful anywhere, it is generally distributed in suitable localities throughout its range—those localities being such as afford it a sufficient supply of food, consisting during the greater part of the year of insects, which it diligently seeks on the boles and larger limbs of old trees; but in autumn and winter it feeds on nuts, beech-mast, the stones of yew-berries and hard seeds . Being of a bold disposition, and the trees favouring its mode of life often growing near houses, it will become on slight encouragement familiar with men; and its neat attire of ash-grey and warm buff, together with its sprightly gestures, render it an attractive visitor . It generally makes its nest in a hollow branch, plastering up the opening with clay, leaving only a circular hole just large enough to afford entrance and exit; and the interior contains a bed of dry leaves or the filmy flakes of the inner bark of a fir or cedar, on which the eggs are laid . In the Levant occurs another species, S. syriaca, with somewhat different habits, as it haunts rocks rather than trees; and four or five representatives of the European arboreal species have their respective ranges from Asia Minor to the Himalayas and Northern China . North America possesses nearly as many; but, curiously enough, the geographical difference of coloration is just the reverse of what it is in Europe—the species with a deep rufous breast, S. canadensis, being that which has the most northern range, while the white-bellied S. carolinensis, with its western form, S. aculeata, inhabits more southern latitudes . The Ethiopian Region has as representative of the group the Hypositta corallirostris of Madagascar . Callisitta and Dendrophila are nearly allied genera, inhabiting the Indian Region, and remarkable for their beautiful blue plumage . Sittella, with four or five species, is found in Australia and New Guinea, whilst Daphnoesitta occurs in New Guinea . The nuthatches are placed in the Passerine family Sittidae, intermediate between the Paridae and the Certhiidae .

(A .