40 THE Birps Axsout Us. 
know it, and as nothing else. If it ever happens 
elsewhere than on a tree-trunk, it must be by acci- 
dent. I found one once that had evidently been 
blown into the room through an open window dur- 
ing a storm. Its effort to creep over the wall was 
not a success, and when it finally sank to the floor, 
its claws took such hold upon the carpet that I could 
not dislodge it without injury. Any attempt to touch 
it was resented by vicious thrusts of its beak, which 
I found quite equal 
to piercing the skin. 
I had in this in- 
stance an opportu- 
» nity of hearing its 
voice, and all I could 
make of it was an 
impatient — sibilant 
squeak, a ¢sz¢, not 
unlike the hiss of a 
captured _ bat. I 
have never heard 
any other sound or 
attempt at singing. 
This bird is not un- 
known to the Middle 
States in summer, 
and I believe occasionally nests with us. Many 

Brown Tree-creeper. 
years ago I found one of these birds busy about an 
old apple-tree, and carrying fluffy material into an 
irregular cavity caused by the loosening of a sheet of 
the bark. 
There are thirteen wrens and varieties or geograph- 
