Family Paride
NUTHATCHES AND TITS.
Two well-marked subfamilies are included here, the Sittinæ, or Nuthatches, and Parinæ, or Chickadees. They are distributed throughout the temperate parts of the northern hemisphere. About twenty species of Nuthatches are known, of which four are American. They are all climbers, but, unlike the Woodpeckers and Creepers, climb downward as well as upward, and do not use their tails as a support. Their name is derived from their habit of wedging nuts (with our species, usually beechnuts) in a crevice in the bark and then hatching them by repeated strokes with their bill.
The subfamily Parince contains some seventy-five species, of which no less than fifty, including the thirteen North American species, belong in the genus Parus. Both our Nuthatches and Chickadees are migratory at the northern parts of their range. After the migration they are generally found in small groups, composed probably of the members of a family, which wander through the woods within certain definite limits.
A. Throat black.
KEY TO THE SPECIES. a. Crown brown: sides chestnut 740. HUDSONIAN CHICKADEE. b. Crown black; outer margin of greater wing-coverts distinctly whitish; wing generally over 2.50 735. CHICKADEE. c. Crown black; greater wing-coverts without white margins; wing under 736. CAROLINA CHICKADEE. * Bull. Nutt. Orn., Club, iv, 1879, pp. 199-209.
NUTHATCHES AND TITS.
B. Throat not black. a. Under parts more or less washed with rufous; a black or gray streak through the eye 728. RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH. b. Under parts white or whitish; under tail-coverts more or less rufous; tail with white spots. 727. WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH. 7276. FLORIDA NUTHATCH. c. Under parts white or whitish; flanks with rufous; no white in the tail; head crested. 731. TUFTED TITMOUSE. 729. BROWN-HEADED NUTHATCH. d. Whole top of the head brown 727. Sitta carolinensis Lath. WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH. Ad. 8.-Top of the head and front part of the back shining black; rest of the upper parts bluish gray; inner secondaries bluish gray, marked with black; wing-coverts and quills tipped with whitish; outer tail-feathers black, with white patches near their tips; middle ones bluish gray; sides of the head and under parts white; lower belly and under tail-coverts mixed with rufous. Ad. 2.-Similar, but the black of the head and back veiled by bluish gray. L., 6.07; W., 3·48; T., 1.92; B., 76.