THE CRIMSON-WINGED CREEPERS. 1 25 



eastwards from the Caucasus. It is also an inhabitant of Abys- 

 sinia to the southward. The northward range of the species 

 in France, as Mr. Howard Saunders has recently pointed out 

 (Bull., Brit. Orn. Club, i., p. xlix), is more extended than is 

 generally supposed, and it has been noticed on the Rhine as 

 far north as Coblentz ; so that its appearance in England is 

 not so strange as might otherwise have been imagined. 



Habits. — Everyone who has had the opportunity of observing 

 this bird in a state of nature, agrees that it is a most beautiful 

 object in the mountainous localities which it frequents, the 

 bright red on the wings rendering it generally conspicuous. 

 Like other Creepers, its food consists of small insects, such as 

 spiders and beetles, while Bailly, the ornithologist of Savoy, 

 says that it also devours ants' eggs and small worms, sometimes 

 also capturing an insect on the wing. The same observer states 

 that its cry resembles the syllable pli pli pli pli, a note like 

 that of the Lesser Spotted-Woodpecker. On the face of the 

 rocks which the bird frequents it climbs in a zigzag fashion, 

 sometimes head-downward, " with a crab-like sidling motion," 

 according to Canon Tristram, " rapidly expanding and closing 

 its wings in a succession of jerks, and showing its brilliant 

 crimson shoulders at each movement." The flight of this species 

 is described as very peculiar, and more like that of a Butterfly. 



Nest. — Placed in the crevices of rocks, sometimes in perfectly 

 inaccessible positions. Mr. Seebohm writes: "A handsome 

 nest of this bird in my collection is very elaborately built. Its 

 chief material is moss, evidently gathered from the rocks and 

 stones, intermingled with a few grasses, and compactly felted 

 together with hairs, wool, and a few feathers. The lining is 

 almost exclusively composed of wool and hair, very thickly and 

 densely felted together. The nest is about one and a half 

 inches deep inside, and the internal diameter is about three 

 inches; outside it measures two and a half inches in depth, 

 and is about six inches in diameter. 



Eggs. — Three to five in number. Almost pure white, save 

 for certain tiny black or reddish-brown dots, scarcely percep- 

 tible on some eggs, and sparsely scattered over the surface of 

 others, in no case very perceptible. Axis, o'S-o-85 inch '» 

 diam., 0*55. 



