WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



them. Easier to detect than the kinglets, yet 

 plainly dressed, are the titmice and nuthatches; 

 but these frequent widely different scenes, and, 

 moreover, have compensating advantages beyond 

 most other birds in the habit of living mostly in 

 the deep woods where diurnal birds of prey are 

 uncommon, and at night of secreting themselves 

 in small holes where the owls cannot get at them. 

 This is also true of the small spotted woodpeck- 

 ers, which, nevertheless, are very inconspicuous ob- 

 jects upon the dead and white trunks they frequent. 

 The brown and white streaks of the creeper 

 (Certhia americana), however, seem to me to furnish 

 a decided case of protective colors in plumage, 

 since they harmonize so exactly with the rough, 

 cracked bark along which the creeper glides that 

 the wee bird is hardly to be followed by the eye at a 

 moderate distance. Again, no coat would better 

 help the wren to scout unobserved about the tangled 

 thickets and through the piles of wind-drifted 

 leaves in and out of this and that shadowy crevice 

 than the plain brown one he wears; while the 

 lighter tints of the goldfinch's livery are precisely 

 those which agree with the russet weeds and grass 

 whose harvest he diligently gathers. The group 

 of exclusively boreal birds seems especially pro- 



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