PERCHING BIRDS. ; 147 
ants, and hollow decaying trees. It is one of our most 
beautiful birds, though its charms do not consist of gay 
colours, but of minute and exquisitely varied pencillings 
which it is impossible to describe. I never found its 
nest but once, when three eggs occupied a shallow and 
much exposed cavity in a decayed oak tree. My atten- 
tion was drawn to it by the female, which was perched 
on a bough of the tree, and which, after suddenly raising 
the feathers of her head, flew off to a short distance. 
In every part of our wooded district the little Creeper 
(Certhia familiaris) findsahome. Summer and winter, 
if you watch carefully and quietly, a glimpse will be had 
of its little brown figure gliding up the trunk of some 
tree like a mouse, and if your person is concealed, you 
may see it prying with its slender bill into the crevices 
of the bark for spiders and other insects that lurk there ; 
but the moment you are perceived it creeps round to the 
opposite side of the tree, or flits to another at a little 
distance. Its chirp is very weak and humble in tone, 
as if it was afraid of being noticed, and yet in the sum- 
mer time it may be heard oftener than it can be seen. 
Indeed, so retiring and unobtrusive are its habits alto- 
gether, that a careless observer might fail to see it at all. 
In the winter I have noticed it frequenting barns and 
other outbuildings, and the neighbourhood of houses, 
the warmth of which attracts a large number of insects ; 
T have also seen it searching the fences in my garden. 
At such times it loses somewhat of its usual timidity, 
although it is still very shy. 
Of the Common Wren (Troglodytes Europeus) it is 
hardly necessary to say more than that it is a most 
familiar and abundant species. Every child knows and 
delights to see “little Jenny Wren,’ the very picture of 
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