42 OUR WINTER BIRDS 



Soon after the first railroad crossed the continent, 

 a famous Indian chief was brought to a station in 

 the West to see a locomotive. When the strange 

 and terrible monster appeared, it seemed neither to 

 interest nor excite him; but when a linesman with 

 his spurs on happened to ascend a nearby telegraph 

 pole, he exclaimed with wonder that a man could 

 climb like a Woodpecker! 



Aside from the Woodpeckers we have only four 

 other climbing birds. Two of these, the White- 

 breasted and Red-breasted Nuthatches, we have al- 

 ready met. The third is the Brown Creeper and the 

 fourth the Black and White Warbler. 



The Nuthatches have a plain gray back and wings, 

 quite unlike Downy's black and white ones, and they 

 climb head downward quite as often as head up- 

 ward, while Downy always goes head upward, and 

 when he wants to go downward, backs down. 



The Brown Creeper is so much smaller and so 

 differently colored that you never could mistake him 

 for Downy, while the Black and White Warbler 

 does not come to us from the south until the latter 

 part of April. By that time we should know Downy 

 so well that we can tell him at a glance from the 

 Warbler, which is smaller and which goes creeping 

 around trunks and limbs instead of hitching some- 

 what jerkily upward or forward. 



