SP. CHAR. Above ashy-blue. Top of head and neck black. Under parts and sides of head to a short distance above the eye white. Under tail-coverts and tibial feathers brown; concealed primaries white. Bill stout. Female with black of head glossed with ashy. Length about 6 inches; wing about 3.75. HAB. United States and British Provinces; west to the Valley of the Missouri. [Illustration: _Sitta aculeata._] HABITS. The common White-bellied Nuthatch has an extended distribution throughout nearly the whole of Eastern North America, from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. West of the great central plains it is replaced by the var. _aculeata_. It has not been met with, so far as I am aware, farther north than Nova Scotia. It is a resident of Eastern Maine, and is quite common in the southern and western portions of the same State. In Massachusetts it is rather common than abundant, and more plentiful in the western than in the eastern portions of that State. The habits of this and the other species of Nuthatches partake somewhat of those of the smaller Woodpeckers and of the Titmice. Without the noisy and restless activity of the latter, they seek their food in a similar manner, and not unfrequently do so in their company, moving up or down the trunks and over or under the branches of trees, searching every crack and crevice of the bark for insects, larvæ, or eggs. Like the Woodpeckers, they dig industriously into decayed branches for the hidden grub, and like both Woodpeckers and Chickadees they industriously excavate for themselves a place for their nests in the decayed trunks of forest trees. Their nest, however, is usually at a greater elevation, often some twenty or thirty feet from the ground. The European Nuthatch is said to plaster up the entrance to its nest, to contract its opening and lessen the dangers of unfriendly intrusion. This habit has never been observed in any of the American species. All our ornithological writers have noticed the assiduities of the male bird to his sitting mate, and the attention with which he supplies her with food. He keeps ever in the vicinity of the nest, calls her from time to time to come to the mouth of the hole to take her food, or else to receive his endearments and caresses, and at the approach of danger fearlessly intervenes to warn her of it. When feeding together, the male bird keeps up his peculiar nasal cry of _hŏnk-hŏnk_, repeating it from time to time, as he moves around the trunk or over the branches.