32 Bird Portraits 
respect, offers a marked contrast to its companions and relatives, 
the sociable Chickadees and Kinglets. 
The eyes of a Creeper are so near the bark which it is inspect- 
ing, that it is not strange that it finds food where we should look in 
vain. It has, besides, a very long curved bill which will reach into 
crevices in the bark, and before the end of the winter, it has 
undoubtedly stripped the trees of a large proportion of the dormant 
insects and their eggs, especially as, like the other winter birds, it 
seems to have a very regular beat, visiting the same groups or rows 
of trees every day. Few birds are so strictly arboreal as the 
Creepers. The writer has only once seen one alight on the ground, 
when the bird flew to a little stream to bathe. In the ice storms 
which occasionally clothe every trunk and limb with a glassy covering, 
the Creeper has to confine itself to the leeward side of the trees. 
Occasionally the Creeper, on account of its practice of beginning at 
the bottom of the trunk, flies to a spot on the tree below the band 
of tarred paper, which protects the shade trees from the visits of the 
canker-worm moth. On reaching the band, the bird makes a circuit 
of the trunk, in a vain attempt to find a passage. It is better 
provided, however, than the wingless moths, and when the circuit has 
been made, a short flight carries it over. 
In April, the Creeper leaves its winter quarters for the North, 
and joins many other species in the great spruce forests of northern 
New England and Canada. Occasionally, on warm mornings before 
its departure, the male indulges in a little song, of the thinnest 
quality imaginable. When the pair reach their northern home, they 
hunt for a crevice under some great flake of loose bark, and there 
construct their nest. The bark of trees, therefore, furnishes the 
Creeper with a cradle at birth and a home for the rest of its life. 
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