176 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
my glass, and taking liberties with their mother 
tongue. Their song resembled that of the song 
sparrow in arrangement of note, but was richer, 
and had a plaintive cast. 
LIX. 
BROWN CREEPER. 
AT last we have a bird to put into our empty 
pigeon-hole, No. 2,—the “creepers.” Like the 
‘“‘thrashers and wrens” in No. 10, his prevailing 
color is brown, and he has a long slender bill, 
while he resembles the nuthatch — his neighbor 
in No. 12—=in habits. In his way, however, the 
brown creeper is a unique bird. He is so nearly 
the color of the brown bark of the trees you 
often overlook him as he goes rocking up their 
sides. When pecking at the bark he looks even 
more convex than the yellow hammer ; for besides 
the curve given by his tail as he braces himself 
by it, and the continuing curve of his back as he 
bends forward, his bill is long and curved, thus 
completing the are. 
He is a systematic workman, going over his 
ground in a painstaking fashion, sometimes even 
flitting back a few feet to examine a piece of moss 
over again. He usually begins at the bottom of 
a tree and works up, sometimes circling, at others 
flitting up, and again rocking straight up the 
Zl 
