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THE BROWN CREEPER 
In the midst of a Massachusetts winter, when 
a man with his eyes open may walk five miles 
over favorable country roads and see only ten or 
twelve kinds of birds, the brown creeper’s faint 
zeep is a truly welcome sound. He is a very 
little fellow, very modestly dressed, without a 
bright feather on him, his lower parts being 
white and his upper parts a mottling of brown 
and white, such as a tailor might call a “ pepper 
and salt mixture.” 
The creeper’s life seems as quiet as his colors. 
You will find him by overhearing his note some- 
where on one side of you as you pass. Now 
watch him. ‘He is traveling rather quickly, with 
an alert, business-like air, up the trunk of a tree 
in a spiral course, hitching along inch by inch, 
hugging the bark, and every little while stop- 
ping to probe a crevice of it with his long, 
curved, sharply pointed bill. He is in search 
of food, — insects’ eggs, grubs, and what not ; 
morsels so tiny that it need not surprise us to see 
