CERTHIA. 431 
course, only found in heavilv-forested areas but it does not keep 
entirely to the interior of forest, wandering freely into the more 
open country wherever there are large trees forming suitable 
hunting-grounds. They are intensely active, restless little birds, 
never still for a minute, scuttling hither and thither, now racing 
over the trank of the tree, now scrambling along the under 
surface of one of the smaller boughs. They, unlike the Wood- 
peckers and Barbets, are just as fond of running down as running 
up the trunks of trees, but their general method is to work a tree 
upwards before taking flight to the next. Their ordinary note is 
a very feeble little squeak, which develops into a louder, fuller 
series of notes in the breeding season. 
They are entirely insectivorous. 
(445) Certhia himalayana teniura.* 
Tur TuRKESTAN TREE-CREEPER. 
Certhia teniura Severtz., Turk. Jevotn., p. 138 (1873) (Turkestan), 
Vernacular names. None recorded. 
Description. ‘This race differs from the preceding bird in being 
much paler, more brown, less black ; the under parts, except the 
chin and throat, are all smoky-brown with no tinge of fulvous. 
Colours of soft parts as in the Himalayan Tree-Creeper. 
Measurements. Wing 65 to 73 mm.; tail about 52 to 65 mm. : 
tarsus about 18 mm.; culmen about 18 to 21 mm. Blanford 
remarks that tentura has a much longer bill than h imalayana; the 
British Museum series does not confirm this. 
Distribution. Turkestan, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Gilgit, 
North and Central Kashmir, Chitral, Karam Valley, ete. 
Nidification. The Turkestan Tree-Creeper is found breeding 
between 5,000 and 12,000 feet over all the mountains of extreme 
North-West India. Whitehead found it breeding in some numbers 
in the Safed Koh up to 9,000 feet and in North Kashmir it 
breeds in great numbers up to 10,000 feet. The nest differs in 
no way from that of the Himalayan Tree-Creeper and the eggs 
cannot be distinguished from those of that bird. Torty eggs 
average 15°9 x 11-‘9 mm. and the extremes of length and breadth 
are 17°5 x 12°3 mm. and 14:9 x 11:3 mm. 
It breeds later than the preceding bird, most eges being laid 
oD 
during the first week in June or the last few days of May. 
* Meinertzhagen has recently separated another form as intermediate 
between iimalayana and teniura under the name of miles (Bull. B. O. C. xii, 
June, 1922). It is true that the birds from Central Kashmir and N.W. India 
are somewhat intermediate between the two but the great Inajority seem to me 
to be easily referable to one or the other race and a third race appears to be 
unnecessary, for on the dividing lines of all subspecies intermediate birds must 
occur. Meinertzhagen is wrong in crediting ¢eniura with a longer culmen 
than himalayana. 
