A WOODLAND COASTER. 183 



short, quick jerks up the trees and branches, turn- 

 ing his head from side to side, as he peers into the 

 crannies of the bark for the delicacies he relishes. 

 On pleasant October days, when Indian summer 

 reigns in the woods, I have often thrown myself 

 flat on the leaf-carpeted ground and lazily, but ad- 

 miringly, watched his antics. Beginning near the 

 roots of a tree, he glides up and up, or slips around 

 and around until he has reached the height he de- 

 sires, and then — well, how do you suppose he 

 descends to a lower perch? When the wood- 

 peckers want to descend, they slide down back- 

 ward ; the nuthatches and creeping warblers race 

 down head foremost, as easily and gracefully as 

 the fly moves on a window-pane ; but the brown 

 creeper performs the feat in his own way, for he is 

 an original little genius. Having reached the upper 

 branches, he hurls himself out through the air in a 

 sweeping, downward curve, and alights near the 

 base of the same or another tree, when he again 

 begins his upward march. Sometimes, however, 

 when the distance is short, he will glide down side- 

 wise, or with his body at an oblique angle with the 

 tree-bole, but he never descends head downw^ard. 

 He no doubt thinks that would be an inelegant 

 performance, 



