200 BROWN CREEPER. 



The Brown Creeper is an extremely active and restless little bird. 

 In winter it associates with the small Spotted Woodpecker, Nuthatch, 

 Titmouse, &c., and often follows in their rear, gleaning up those insects 

 which their more powerful bills had alarmed and exposed ; for its own 

 slender incurvated bill seems unequal to the task of penetrating into 

 even the decayed wood, though it may into holes and behind scales of 

 the bark. Of the Titmouse there are generally present the individuals 

 of a whole family, and seldom more than one or two of the others. As 

 the party advances through the Avoods, from tree to tree, our little 

 gleaner seems to observe a good deal of regularity in his proceedings ; 

 for I have almost always observed that he alights on the body near the 

 root of the tree, and directs his course Avith great nimbleness upAvards 

 to the higher branches, sometimes spirally, often in a direct line, moving 

 rapidly and uniformly along, with his tail bent to the tree, and not in 

 the hopping manner of the Woodpecker, Avhom he far surpasses in 

 dexterity of climbing, running along the lower side of the horizontal 

 branches with surprising ease. If any person be near when he alights, 

 he is sure to keep the opposite side of the tree, moving round as he 

 moves, so as to prevent him from getting more than a transient glimpse 

 of him. The best method of outwitting him, if you are alone, is, as 

 soon as he alights and disappears behind the trunk, take your stand 

 behind an adjoining one, and keep a sharp lookout twenty or thirty 

 feet up the body of the tree he is upon, for he generally mounts very 

 regularly to a considerable height, examining the whole Avay as he 

 advances. In a minute or two, hearing all still, he Avill make his 

 appearance on one side or other of the tree, and give yon an opportu- 

 nity of observing him. 



These birds are distributed over the whole United States ; but are 

 most numerous in the Western and Northern States, and particularly so 

 in the depth of the forests, and in tracts of 4arge timbered woods, Avhere 

 they usually breed ; visiting the thicker settled parts of the country in 

 fall and winter. They are more abundant in the flat woods of the 

 lower district of New Jersey than in Pennsylvania ; and are frequently 

 found among the pines. Though their customary food appears to con- 

 sist of those insects of the coleopterous class, yet I have frequently 

 found in their stomachs the seeds of the pine-tree, and fragments of a 

 species of fungus that vegetates in old wood, with generally a large 

 proportion of gravel. There seems to be scarcely any difference 

 between the colors and markings of the male and fernale. In the month 

 of March I opened eleven of these birds, among whom Avere several 

 females, as appeared by the clusters of minute eggs with which their 

 ovaries were filled, and also several Avell-marked males, and, on the 

 most careful comparison of their plumage, I could find little or no dif- 

 ference ; the colors indeed were rather more vivid and intense in some 



