IT IS doubtful if any bird has been more persistently overlooked or more universally confounded with a closely allied species than the subject of this sketch. His superficial resemblances to the white-breasted nuthatch, either in color or voice, are not striking, certainly not so much so as with other species which are not so confused, yet it is certainly true that but a small proportion of the laity are aware that there are two nuthatches roaming the woods, the one a migrant in the Middle and Southern States, the other resident wherever it is found. What, then, are the marked differences between them? The red-breast is decidedly smaller than his cousin, his breast is tinged with red or brown instead of the immaculate white, and there is a black line running through the eye to the back of the head, separating the white line above it from the white throat; the cry is a nasal, long drawn 'yank, yank,' very different from the brisk, crisp, business-like utterance of the white-breast. Moreover, he is a traveled gentleman who spends the winters in the South and his summers mostly north of the United States, while we have the white-breast with us during the entire year. So much for differences.

The habit of climbing head downward, sidewise, or any way, is common to all nuthatches. They feed upon the insects and their eggs and larvÆ which inhabit the bark crevices, but also sometimes vault into the air in pursuit of a flying insect, after the manner of the flycatchers. In the North, where the red-breast sometimes tarries well into the winter, rarely remaining all winter long, they fasten nuts and seeds in cracks or crevices and hatch them with the beak, eating the meat, of course. It is this habit of 'hatching' nuts that gives the group its English name.

The red-breast is a bird of the whole of the United States and at least southern Canada, but can be called common only locally and occasionally. Some seasons it may not appear at all at some stations in its migration routes, and again be common for a short period, especially in the autumn. In most central localities it may be expected during the last two weeks of April and the first week of May, and again from September well into the winter months, if not all winter long.

The nest is placed in some dead stub in a hole excavated by the birds, usually several feet from the ground—as high as twelve feet sometimes. The nest material is some soft substance like fine grass and rootlets. The excavation is usually shallow, scarcely more than six inches down the stub, with other even shallower holes in other trees in the vicinity used as roosting-places for the male during incubation. In beginning the excavation, the birds drill small holes in a circle in the bark, then take out the center piece. In several instances the bark about the entrance to the nest cavity was coated with pitch in which were sticking the red-breast feathers of the architects. This pitching of the entrance to their home does not seem to be a habit common to all members of the species, however, for few collectors mention the pitch, as they certainly would if it were present.

While birds of the woods, neither the red-breast nor the white-breast are strictly confined to the woods during the seasons when they are not rearing a brood. The red-breast is frequently seen on the fences and out in the open, gleaning from weed-stalks, during his southward journey. He also seems very fond of orchards and the ornamental trees in the yard where he does excellent service for the next season's fruit and foliage. He is, perhaps, a little less inquisitive than his white-breasted cousin, but his small size and drawling voice make him a pleasant fellow to meet.