520 BRITISH BIRDS. 
did not seem at all alarmed, but came down from its high perch and flitted 
to the face of the perpendicular rock, where we brought it down with a 
half-charge of dust-shot. We did not hear either bird utter any note. 
Canon Tristram frequently met with this bird in his ornithological 
wanderings through Palestine, and found it a permanent resident in the 
rocky defiles of the northern and central parts of that country. He 
writes :—‘ We never saw it in the south, where probably the cliffs are too 
parched and dry to supply it with its insect food. I know few ornitho- 
logical sights more interesting than to watch this beautiful little creature 
as it flits along the face of a long line of cliff, with a crab-like siding 
motion, rapidly expanding and closing its wings in a succession of jerks, 
and showing its brilliant crimson shoulders at each movement. It gene- 
rally works up the gorge at nearly the same elevation, with its breast 
towards the face of the rock, and moves close to its surface in a perpen- 
dicular position, rapidly darting forth its bill and picking out minute 
insects as it passes along. In a few minutes it would return down the 
valley again, quartering the rock in a line parallel to its former course.” 
The Wall-Creeper is a bird most probably united to its partner for life, 
and is therefore usually seen in pairs, and each season the same nesting- 
place is chosen. They certainly are not very noisy birds, and their call- 
note, according to Bailly, resembles the syllables pli-pli-pli-pli. Naumann 
compares their note to that of the Bullfinch, and also states that they have 
a song somewhat resembling that of the Creeper; but several careful 
observers affirm that they have never heard the birds utter a call-note at 
all. Bailly states that the bird is constantly in motion, fluttering like a 
butterfly from one rock to another, sometimes remaining in mid-air sus- 
pended before a cleft in the rocks. It does not climb so easily or so 
gracefully as the Woodpeckers and the Creepers, nor does it support itself 
by its tail as those birds continually do. Sometimes, according to this 
naturalist, the bird will also visit the branches of trees growing on the 
rocks in its haunts. 
The breeding-season of this bird varies a little according to the situa- 
tion; in some localities it commences in the latter part of April, in 
others not until the beginning of June. The nest is placed in the 
crevices of the rocks, sometimes in places quite inaccessible. A hand- 
some nest of this bird in my collection is very elaborately built. Its chief 
material is moss, evidently gathered from the rocks and stones, inter- 
mingled with a few grasses, and compactly felted together with hairs, 
wool, and a few feathers. The lining is almost exclusively composed of 
wool and hair, very thickly and densely felted together. The nest is about 
one and a half inches deep inside, and the internal diameter is about three 
inches ; outside it measures two and a half inches in depth and is about 
six inches in diameter. The eggs of the Wall-Creeper are from three to 
4 
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