ee 
20 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
less he had special reasons of his own for dread- 
ing the presence of this cowardly foe. 
One of our regular visitors twice a year is the 
brown creeper. He is so small and silent, and 
withal his color is so like that of the bark to 
which he clings, that I suspect he is seldom no- 
ticed even by persons who pass within a few 
feet of him. But he is not too small to be hec- 
tored by the sparrows, and I have before now 
been amused at the encounter. The sparrow 
catches sight of the creeper, and at once bears 
down upon him, when the creeper darts to the 
other side of the tree, and alights again a little 
further up. ‘The sparrow is after him; but, as 
he comes dashing round the trunk, he always 
seems to expect to find the creeper perched upon 
some twig, as any other bird would be, and it 
is only after a little reconnoitring that he again 
discovers him clinging to the vertical bole. 
Then he makes another onset with a similar re- 
sult; and these manceuvres are repeated, till the 
creeper becomes disgusted, and takes to another 
tree. | 
The olive-backed thrushes and the hermits 
may be looked for every spring and autumn, 
and I have known forty or fifty of the former to 
be present at once. The hermits most often 
travel singly or in pairs, though a small flock is 
not so very uncommon. Both species preserve 
