512° BRITISH BIRDS. 
CERTHIA FAMILIARIS. 
COMMON CREEPER. 
(Prats 11.) 
Certhia certhia, Briss. Orn. iii. p. 603 (1760). 
Certhia familiaris, Zinn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 184 (1766); et auctorum plurimorum— 
Latham, Gmelin, Naumann, Temminck, Gray, Bonaparte, Degland, Gerbe, 
Newton, Dresser, &c. 
Certhia fusca, Barton, Fragm. Nat. Hist. Penn. p. 11 (1799). 
Certhia americana, Bonap. Comp. List B. Eur. and N. Amer. p. 11 (1858)*. 
The unassuming little Creeper is one of the smallest of our British 
birds. It is generally, though locally, distributed throughout the wooded 
districts of Great Britain and Ireland, occasionally found in the Orkneys 
and Shetland, but apparently absent from the Outer Hebrides and Western 
Isles. It is found iu all the Channel Islands, probably excepting Alderney. 
It is a resident bird, but occasionally turns up at Heligoland on 
migration; and its occurrences on the Orkneys and Shetlands are probably 
those of Scandinavian birds driven westwards by excessive cold or gales. 
The Common Creeper may almost be considered a circumpolar bird, 
* The above is the synonymy of the typical or temperate form, which is the only one 
found in our islands. The synonymy of the Arctic or pale form is as follows :— 
CERTHIA FAMILIARIS, var. SCANDULACA. 
Certhia scandulaca, Pallas, Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat, i. p. 452 (1826). 
Certhia nattereri, Bonap. Comp. List B. Ew. and N. Amer. p. 11 (1888). 
Certhia cost, Bailly, Bull. Soc. Hist. Nat. de Savoie, Jan, (1852). 
Certhia hodgsoni, Brooks, Jowrn. As. Soc, Beng. xli. pt. 2, p. 74 (1872). 
The synonymy of the tropical or rufous form is as follows :— 
CERTHIA FAMILIARIS, var. NIPALENSIS. 
Certhia nipalensis, Hodgs. fide Blyth, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. xiv. p. 582 (1845). 
Certhia mexicana, Giloger, fide Reich, Handb. i. p. 266 (1851). 
Certhia mandelli, Brooks, Jow'n. As, Soc, Beng, xiii. pt. 2, p. 256 (1878). 
Hodgson never distinguished between C. nipalensis, C. discolor, and C. himalayana, 
His types in the British Museum of C. nipalensis (no. 598) are some of them C. discolor 
and others C. himalayana., I cannot find any drawing of a Certhia in his MSS. in the 
British Museum ; but I have a copy (made by my friend Mr. Brooks) of a drawing in the 
Hodgson MSS. in the possession of Mr. Hume, which undoubtedly represents C. discolor. 
As, however, Hodgson appears never to have published his name, it cannot now be used 
for either of the species with which he was acquainted, but must be applied to the third 
species, which will stand as C. nipalensis, Blyth, Jerdon, Hume, &c., nee Hodgson nee 
Brooks. 
