VII CERTHIDAE CUAL 
bird (Pardalotus) has scattered white dots above, and scarlet or 
yellow tips to the primary coverts; Dicaewm often shews a 
longitudinal black band below; while bars and streaks occur not 
infrequently. The bill is blackish, or in Dicaeum erythrorhynchum 
reddish. The female is almost invariably duller. 
These small birds frequent woods and gardens, the little flocks 
often haunting lofty trees near rivers; they hop briskly among 
the boughs, dart from bush to bush, creep about and cling like 
Tits, and utter a long, low warble, or in Pardalotus a harsh 
monotonous piping note. The food consists of insects, varied by 
spiders, fruit, buds, seeds, and perhaps honey. Dicaeuwm and 
Prionochilus suspend from some twig a domed, pear-shaped nest 
of white cottony material, frequently covered with grass or moss, 
and decorated with caterpillars’ excreta; Pardalotus chooses old 
Swallows’ nurseries, or holes in trees and walls, or even tunnels a 
short way into banks, making within a spherical fabric of roots, 
grass, bark, and feathers. The two to five eggs are commonly 
white, but in Prionochilus (Piprisoma) squalidus they are redder, 
with dense brown-pink or claret-coloured blotches or specks. 
Fam. XXX. Certhiidae.—The Creepers, a small, though wide- 
spread group, occupy most of the Palaearctic and Nearctic Regions ; 
Africa from Benguela to Mashona-Land; Australia and New 
Guinea. The bill is long and generally decurved, but shorter 
and straighter in Climacteris ; while nasal and rictal bristles are 
absent. The metatarsi are of medium length and slender, though 
stouter in Salpornis; Tichodroma and Climacteris have the scutes 
fused; and the toes—especially the hallux—have long, curved 
claws. The wings vary from moderate and rounded to elongated 
and pointed; the tail is usually short and square, or very nearly 
so, but has stiff, graduated, acuminate feathers in Certhia. The 
coloration of both sexes is brown, black, rufous, buff, grey, and 
white, except in Zichodroma, which exhibits crimson wing-patches 
on its grey, black, and white plumage. Bars and spots are 
frequent, particularly beneath. 
The majority are tame birds, inhabiting thinly wooded dis- 
tricts, often close to dwellings; but the European and Asiatic 
Tichodroma muraria, which has strayed to Britain, haunts moun- 
tain cliffs, and, when on migration, walls also. They utter shrill 
cries, or, more commonly, low reiterated notes, which in our Creeper 
(Certhia familiaris) are varied by a sweet and fairly loud song; 
