174 The Tree-Creeper. 



In Great Britain it is pretty generally distributed, especially affecting well- 

 timbered districts : it has not, however, been recorded from the Outer Hebrides. 



When adult this species has the upper surface dark brown, with pale bufSsh 

 centres to the feathers, the lower back and rump more rufous ; wing-coverts 

 tipped with pale buff"; flights dark brown with paler bars, the secondaries with 

 bufiish-white tips ; tail-feathers rufous-brown with paler shafts ; a whitish super- 

 ciliar}^ streak ; under surface silky-white, the flanks and under tail-coverts suffused 

 with buff"; bill dark brown above, yellowish below; feet brown; iris hazel. Sexes 

 similar, excepting that the female is slightly smaller than the male. The young 

 have a much shorter and straight bill. 



This interesting little resident bird, owing to its mouse-like manner of creep- 

 ing over the bark of trees, is often overlooked, for excepting when its conspicuous 

 white underparts come iuto view, as it passes rapidly round the side of a trunk, it 

 is not easily seen : moreover, I have noticed that, when it becomes aware of an 

 onlooker, it immediately slips round to the opposite side of the tree upon which 

 it is seeking its insect food, and then only its weak note cheet-cheet reveals its 

 presence. In the outskirts of the Kentish woods,* I have once or twice caught 

 a glimpse of it rapidly traversing the trunk of some large tree in an ascending 

 spiral until it reached the branches, passing round one of these for a short distance 

 then fluttering with undulating downward flight, almost to the roots of another 

 tree, which it ascended in like manner ; but I never could get very close to this 

 little bird until one autumn, when from my bedroom window, I saw two specimens 

 ascending the trunk of an oak-tree in my front garden and was able to note how 

 they stopped at every two or three feet to probe some crevice in the bark. 



W. Warde Fowler, in his " Summer Studies of Birds and Books," has an 

 interesting note on the song of this bird as heard by him in Switzerland ; he 

 says : — " "When I was last at Bern we did not stay there long, but went on in 

 the afternoon to the Hotel Bellevue at Thun, where there is an extensive garden. 

 Next morning I was out before breakfast in this garden, and soon heard a voice 

 that was new to me. If this happens after May, when all the foliage is out, I 

 know I may be teased for a while, and so it happened that morning. Wherever 

 I went, there was the mysterious voice — clearly that of a very small bird, feeble 

 and shrill, though contented and unobtrusive. Five little syllables of different 

 length were constantly repeated, getting a little higher in pitch towards the end : 

 ' tivec-tivce-hv-twee-t .^ It was late in the morning when I found that it was nothing 

 in the world but our common little Tree-creeper. Now, I can count on my fingers 



* lu the Bleau woods, near the village of Heme, formerly one of my favourite EutomoloKical hunting 

 grounds 



