When the young come from the egg, they are fed with unremitting care. They now issue from their wooden cave, and gently creep around its aperture. There, while the genial rays of the summer's sun give vigour to their tender bodies, and enrich their expanding plumage, the parents, faithful guardians to the last, teach them how to fly, to ascend the tree with care, and at length to provide for their own wants. Ah! where are the moments which I have passed, in the fulness of ecstacy, contemplating the progress of these amiable creatures! Alas! they are gone, those summer days of hope and joy are fled, and the clouds of life's winter are mustering in their gloomy array.
This species breeds twice in the year, in the Southern and Middle States; seldom more than once, to the eastward of New York. In the State of Maine, they work at their nest late in May; in Nova Scotia not until June. Farther north I did not find them. Sometimes they are contented with the hole bored by any small Woodpecker, or even breed in the decayed hollow of a tree or fence. The eggs, five or six in number, are dull white, spotted with brown at the larger end. They are laid on detached particles of wood.
The notes of the White-breasted Nuthatch are remarkable on account of their nasal sound. Ordinarily they resemble the monosyllables hānk, hānk, kānk, kānk; but now and then in the spring, they emit a sweeter kind of chirp, whenever the sexes meet, or when they are feeding their young.
Its flight is rapid, and at times rather protracted. If crossing a river or a large field, they rise high, and proceed with a tolerably regular motion; but when passing from one tree to another, they form a gently incurvated sweep. They alight on small branches or twigs, and now and then betake themselves to the ground to search for food.
Their bill is strong and sharp, and they not unfrequently break acorns, chestnuts, &c., by placing them in the crevices of the bark of trees, or between the splinters of a fence-rail, where they are seen hammering at them for a considerable time. The same spot is usually resorted to by the Nuthatch as soon as it has proved to be a good and convenient one. A great object seems to be to procure the larvæ entombed in the kernels of the hard fruits, insects being at all times the favourite food of these birds. They are fond of roosting in their own nest, to which I believe many return year after year, simply cleaning or deepening it for the purpose of depositing their eggs in greater security. Like others of the tribe, they hang head-downwards to sleep, especially in a state of captivity.
The young obtain their full plumage during winter. The only differences between the male and the female are, a slight inferiority of the latter as to size, and a somewhat less depth of colouring. Like the other two species, they now and then alight on a top branch for an instant, in the manner used by other birds.
Sitta carolinensis, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 177.—Lath. Index Ornith. vol. i. p. 262.—Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 96.
White-breasted American Nuthatch, Sitta carolinensis, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. i. p. 10. pl. 2. fig. 3.—Nuttall, Manual, vol. i. p. 581.
Adult Male. Plate CLII. Fig. 1.
Bill straight, of the length of the head, very hard, conico-subulate, a little compressed, acute; upper mandible with the dorsal outline very slightly arched, the edges sharp towards the point; lower mandible smaller, of equal length, straight. Nostrils basal, round, half-closed by a membrane, partially covered by the frontal feathers. The general form is short and compact. Feet rather strong, the hind toe stout, and as long as the middle toe, with a strong hooked claw; the claws arched, compressed, acute.