Although apparently preferring pines and pine barrens, it by no means confines itself to them, but is not unfrequently seen on low trees and fences, mounting, descending, and turning in every direction, and with so much quickness of motion as to render it difficult to shoot it. It examines every hole and every crevice in the bark of trees, as well as their leaves and twigs, among which it finds abundance of food at all seasons. During the breeding-season they go about in pairs and are very noisy. Their only note is a monotonous cry, described as resembling dĕnd, dĕnd. Mr. Audubon further states that when the first brood leaves the nest, the young birds keep together, moving from tree to tree with all the activity of their parents, who join them when the second brood is able to keep them company. In Florida they pair in the beginning of February, having eggs as early as the middle of that month. In South Carolina they breed one month later. Their nest is usually excavated by the birds themselves in the dead portion of a low stump or sapling, sometimes only a few feet from the ground, but not unfrequently at the height of thirty or forty feet. Both birds are said to work in
concert with great earnestness for several days, until the hole, which is round, and not larger at the entrance than the body of the bird, is dug ten or twelve inches deep, widening at the bottom. The eggs, according to Mr. Audubon, are laid on the bare wood. This, however, is probably not their constant habit. The eggs, from four to six in number, and not much larger than those of the Humming-Bird, have a white ground, thickly sprinkled with fine reddish-brown dots. They are said to raise two, and even three, broods in a season. According to the observations of the late Dr. Gerhardt of Northern Georgia, the Brown-headed Nuthatch breeds in that part of the country about the 19th of April.
The eggs of this Nuthatch are of a rounded oval shape, measuring .60 by .50 of an inch. Their white ground-color is so completely overlaid by a profusion of fine dottings of a dark purplish-brown as to be entirely concealed, and the egg appears almost as if a uniform chocolate or brown color.
Family CERTHIADÆ.—The Creepers.
Char. Primaries ten; first very short; less than half the second. Tail long, wedge-shaped, the feathers stiffened and acute. Bill slender, much compressed and curved. Outer lateral toe much longest; hind toe exceeding both the middle toe and the tarsus, which is scutellate anteriorly and very short. Entire basal joint of middle toe united to the lateral.
Genus CERTHIA, Linn.
Certhia, Linnæus, Syst. Nat. ed. 10th, 1758, 112. (Type, C. familiaris.) (See Reichenbach, Handbuch, I, II, 1853, 256, for a monograph of the genus.)
Certhia americana.
827 ♂