BIRDS IN THE GREENWOODS 245 



perhaps all true tree-creeping birds may be able to 

 descend in this fashion, should they wish it, though 

 to do so head first may be beyond the power, or rather 

 the habit, of most of them. This, certainly, I have 

 never seen the tree-creeper do, but I should not be 

 at all surprised were I to, some day, and in describ- 

 ing the habits of any bird, " never " — excepting in 

 extreme cases — is, in my opinion, a word that should 

 never be used. 



The tit, however, though only an amateur tree- 

 creeper, does, as we have seen, descend the trunk 

 head downwards, showing, to this extent at least, 

 a superiority over a much greater master of the art. 

 But here we have the flutter, whether helped out 

 by the use of the feet or not, and we can imagine 

 that, as the bird became more and more a true 

 creeper, and used the wings less and less, he might 

 cease to descend, and only creep upwards. It must, 

 however, be remembered that all the tits are accus- 

 tomed to hang head downwards from twigs and 

 branches in an uncommon degree, so that a member 

 of the family, developing along these lines, might 

 find it easier to descend the trunk, or make greater 

 efforts to overcome the difficulty of doing so, than 

 a bird whose habits in this respect were less pro- 

 nounced. Tits perch more generally amongst the 

 higher branches of trees, and have no particular habit 

 of hopping about the ground or creeping over and 

 about the tangle of a tree's projecting roots, which 

 I have often watched wrens doing. Those which 

 I saw tree-creeping did not fly — or at any rate I did 

 not notice that they did — from the tree they were on, 

 so as to alight upon another at a lower elevation, 



