CREEPY, WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH 313 



When I fed these birds I noticed he was still with them, 

 and I was not long in discovering that they were really 

 chums, that he and another of his kind were to be found 

 with this flock of chickadees almost any time in the day. 

 When their crumbs were scattered on the snow, Creepy 

 did not hesitate to feed with them, although at other timeS 

 lie seldom alighted on the ground. Chickadees hunt the 

 trees for insects and their eggs as carefully as do any of 

 the woodpeckers or nuthatches, but Creepy and these birds 

 hunted together in perfect harmony and never seemed to 

 infringe on each other's territory. The top of the tree and 

 the branches evidently belonged to the chickadees while 

 the trunk was the special property of the nuthatches. 



Creepy invariably alighted on the tree pretty well np 

 and hunted downward, which means that his head was 

 down the greater part of the time. These birds are even 

 more expert at crawling about on the bark of a tree, taking 

 any sort of position imaginable, than are the woodpeckers. 

 Their toes are long and stout and are armed with power- 

 ful claws which enable them to hold firmly to the side of 

 any tree. I have seen one of these birds sitting on the side 

 of a tree with its head upward and then without letting 

 loose of the tree at all with one foot, turn completely 

 around imtil the head was downward, the foot still point- 

 ing upward. To me it is as marvelous to see one of these 

 birds turn almost completely around without changing a 

 foot as it is to see the owl turn his head more than half 

 way round to gaze at me. 



These birds are found practically everywhere, though 

 they are never numerous. If you look sharply you will 

 have no trouble in locating them in the winter time when 

 the trees are bare and other birds are scarce. If they 



