THE TAWNY CREEPER. 297 
(Ridgway). Length of male: wing 2.44 (61.9) ; tail 2.41 (61.2) ; bill .60 (15.2) ; 
tarsus .61 (15.5). 
Recognition Marks. 
Nesting.—Nest: as in preceding; placed behind sprung bark scale usually 
at moderate heights, 3-20 feet up (one record of 60). Inner diameter of one 
nest 134 inches, depth 2%. Eggs: 5 or 6, as in C. f. zelotes. Av. size .58 x .47 
(14.7X 11.9). Season: May, June; two broods. 
General Range.—Pacific Coast district from Northern California to Sitka. 
Range in Washington.—Resident thruout the West-side from tidewater up. 
Authorities.—? Certhia familiaris Orn. Com. Journ. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., 
VII. 1837, 193 (Columbia River). Certhia americana Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. 
UV lAG 1858, p. 372, part. (1). C&S. Lt. Rh. Ra. B. E. 
Specimens.—U. of W. Prov. BN. 
As in preceding; darker. 
TO one who loves birds with an all inclusive passion—such as the 
undecided bachelor is wont to confess for the fair sex—the temptation 
to use superlatives upon each successive species as it is brought under review 
is very strong. But here perhaps we may be pardoned for relaxing our 
attention, or, it may be, for being caught in the act of stifling a little yawn. 
Certhia is a prosy drab, and all the beauty she possesses is in the eyes of her 
little hubby—dear, devoted creature. 
This clerkling (hubby, of course, I mean) was brought into the world 
behind a bit of bark. His first steps, or creeps, were taken along the 
bark of the home tree. When the little wings got stronger and when 
the little claws had carried him up to the top of tree number One, he 
fluttered and spilled thru the air until he pulled up somehow, with heart 
beating fiercely, at the base and on the bark of tree number Two. Since 
then he has climbed an almost infinity of trees (but I dare say he has 
kept count). Summers and winters have gone over his head, but never 
a waking hour in which he has not climbed and tumbled in this worse 
than Sysiphean task of gleaning nits and eggs and grubs from the never- 
ending bark. Why, it gets upon the nerves! I pray you think, has not 
this animate brown spot traveled more relative miles of ridgy brown bark 
in his wee lifetime than ever mariner on billowy sea! Work, work, work! 
With the industry of an Oriental he seeks to shame the rollicking caprice 
of Chickadee, and to be a “living example’’ to such spendthrifts as Goldikins, 
the Kinglet. 
But wait! I am not sure. Could anyone live in these majestic forests, 
could anyone breathe this incense of perpetual balsam, could anyone mount 
triumphantly these aspiring tree-boles, way, way up into the blue, without 
growing the soul of a poet? Hark! “Tew, tewy, tewy, Ping, tewy,’—an 
