276 BLACK-AND-WHITE CREEPING WARBLER. 



Warbler, except that his front toes are a little more joined 

 together at the base, and his hind toe a little longer and his bill 

 somewhat curved toward the tip. Very remarkable indeed is 

 this joint relationship of certain birds with two or more 

 different groups, so that it is only by a careful noting of 

 their stronger affinities that we can find their rank in classi- 

 fication. They serve as a sort of softening or blending of 

 the otherwise harsher boundaries of orders. 



Not only does our little bird readily attract the eye; his 

 fine, soft and yet distinct song, ki-tsee, ki-tsee, ki-tsee, ki-tseCj 

 as slender to the ear as " hair-wire " to the eye, and rather 

 monotonous indeed, but so peculiar, so tender, so musical, 

 as even to soften and sweeten surrounding nature — is 

 equally attractive and pleasing to the ear. Warbler or 

 Creeper, he is one of the most welcome and beloved com- 

 panions of the dark woods and deep, swampy ravines which 

 he is wont to inhabit. Always keeping more or less to the 

 lower story of his shadowy abodes, his nest is generally on 

 the ground, near the root of a decaying stump or tree, 

 and so placed that "an overhanging rock, a log, the branch- 

 ing roots of a tree, or herbage of the preceding year affords 

 protection." It is a rather loose and scanty structure of 

 dried leaves and grasses, strips of bark, or pine needles,, 

 containing perhaps some vegetable down and horse-hair as 

 lining. 



The eggs, averaging about four, .70x.50 or a little 

 more, and somewhat pointed, are creamy white, finely 

 specked, more thickly around the large end, with light brown 

 and a little pale lilac. The situation of this Warbler's nest 

 seems to vary considerably, however, in some cases. In 

 Louisiana Audubon found it "usually placed in some small 

 hole in a tree." Nuttall found one "niched in the shelving 

 of a rock." Dr. Brewer reports one found in the drain of a 



