I20 WALL-CREEPER. 



On migration the Wall-Creeper has occurred several times at 

 Rouen and in other parts of Normandy, while along the Loire it is 

 not uncommon, and seven or eight examples have been obtained as 

 far west as Nantes ; most of them on the walls of the old chateau 

 which overlooks the busy wharves. It breeds sparingly in suitable 

 localities in the Vosges and the Jura ; while stragglers have occurred 

 on the Rhine as far north as Coblentz, and in the valleys of the 

 Moselle and the Meuse. In the mountains of Savoy and Switzer- 

 land it is generally distributed, being perhaps more abundant in the 

 Grisons than in any other district ; it is also resident in the Basses- 

 Alps, Provence, the mountainous regions of the mainland of Italy, 

 Sicily, Sardinia and Elba ; while Professor Giglioli has observed it 

 climbing about walls in Florence. Throughout the Pyrenees and 

 the Cantabrian chain, and in the mountains of the Peninsula 

 down to the Sierra Nevada, it is comparatively abundant. East of 

 the Alps we find it in Tyrol, Styria, the Carpathians, Greece, the 

 Caucasus, and the mountains of Asia as far as China ; while 

 Riippell has recorded it from Egypt and Abyssinia. 



The nest, composed of moss, straw, and grass, lined with hair, 

 wool and feathers, is placed in some crevice of the rocks ; and the 

 3-5 eggs are white, very finely spotted with reddish-brown : measure- 

 ments 78 by "56 in. Two broods are sometimes produced in the 

 season ; incubation devolving upon the female. The call-note is a 

 shrill pli-pli-pli-pli-pli, like that of the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. 

 The food consists of spiders, insects and their larvae generally, in 

 search of which the bird may be seen climbing up the face of a 

 cliff by vertical jumps ; the wings being nearly closed, though 

 spread when the bird is basking ; the tail is not used as an aid to 

 progression. 



Adult male in breeding-plumage : slate-grey above, darker on the 

 head and still darker on the rump ; wing-coverts mostly crimson ; 

 quills blackish, tipped with dull white, the 2nd to 5th each with 

 a basal and a sub-apical white spot on the inner web, the 6th 

 with only a buff basal spot ; outer webs of nearly all the primaries 

 rich crimson ; tail black, tipped with grey and white ; throat and 

 breast black ; remaining under parts dark grey ; bill, legs and feet 

 black. Length 6 in. (bill '6 in.); wing 3-9 in. The female has 

 rather less black on the throat. In winter that part becomes 

 greyish-white in both sexes, while the head is browner and the upper 

 parts are paler. The young bird at first exhibits less crimson, has 

 a shorter bill, and the throat is grey like the shoulders, though the 

 black throat is acquired the first spring. 



