440 CERTHIID®. 
Measurements. Length about 150 mm.; wing 84 to 91 mm.; 
tail 45 to 52 mm.; tarsus about 17 mm.; culmen 21 to 24 mm. 
Distribution. Nothing has been added to our knowledge of this 
bird’s distribution since 1889. Throughout a considerable portion 
of the plains of India, from the foot of the Himalayas South to 
the Kistna River. On the West the limits of this species appear 
to be Gurgaon, Sambhar, Ajmer and Abu. Further South it has 
been met with at Dhulia in Khandesh and Blanford records it 
from Chanda, Sirancha and the Godavari Valley. Ball obtained 
it at Sambulpar and at various localities in Chutia Nagpore and I 
have seen a specimen colleeted somewhere in Behar. 
Nidification. The nest of this bird was first taken by Cleveland 
at Gurgaon on the 16th of April and subsequently Mr. T. R. Bell 
took a good many nests during March and April at Khandesh. 
The nests are extraordinary and bear no resemblance to those of 
Tree-Creepers of the genus Certhia. They are shallow cup-shaped 
affairs made of a matted mass of scraps of leaf-stalks and leaves, 
bits of bark and lichen bound together with spiders’ webs and 
decorated externally with lichen, spiders’ egg-bags, and caterpillar 
excreta. The position selected is the horizontal branch of a tree, 
generally at some point where a vertical twig or shoot can be used 
as a support to one of the sides. The nests are always placed in 
leafless trees on the bare branches and are practically invisible 
from below, so that the birds must be watched on to the nests 
before they can be found. Sometimes, however, the sitting hen 
gives away her position by answering her mate as he sits singing 
in the vicinity of the nest. The number of eggs seem to be 
nearly always two and very rarely three and these, too, are quite 
unlike what we should have expected. The ground-colour is a 
erey, or greenish-white according to Cleveland, and the markings 
consist of very dark brown tiny spots and specks sparsely scattered 
over the greater part of the egg but sometimes more numerous in 
an ill-defined cap or ring at the larger end. Cleveland’s egg 
measured 17°3x13-4 mm. and those given me by Mr. Bell 
average about 16°9x 13-0 mm. The surface is smooth and fine 
but dull and not very hard. 
Habits. This Creeper is a bird of the plains, being found in 
small flocks in winter and in pairs as soon as the breeding season 
commences. Davidson found it not uncommon in Khandesh, 
common in the northern end of the Western Ghats along the 
Tapti River. The country here is hot and low-lying, mostly flat but 
containing small wooded hills. They haunt the larger trees for 
preference, but are also sometimes found on smaller ones and they 
frequent both forest and more open well-wooded country. Their 
actions on a tree are much the same as those of birds of the genus 
Certhia and they are equally active and quick in their movements. 
Blanford records their flight as rather swift and their call as a 
whistling note. 
