Their Eggs and Nests. 91 



from six to nine or ten in number, and I have heard 

 of even more. Tliey are white, with almost alwaj^s a 

 few pale red spots about them. The male is said to 

 feed the female during the period of closest incuba- 

 tion. Many other birds certainly have the same 

 habit, even when the mate has left the nest just to 

 stretch her wings, as it were. I have seen the 

 Common Linnet do this. — Fig. Yl, plate IV. 



FAMILY IX.— CERTHIAD^. 



CREEPER— (ar////^ familiaris). 



Tree-creeper, Tree-climber. — A shy, gentle-seeming 

 little bird, shunning observation, and, with the rest of 

 its neighbours in our catalogue, possessing a singular 

 facility of quietly and rapidly shifting its place on 

 the trunk or limb of a tree, so as always to interpose 

 an efficient screen between its own minute body and 

 the eye of any passer-by. Its claws, sharp and long 

 and curved, aided by its long and pointed tail-feathers, 

 are its chief machinery in these facile motions. It 

 builds its nest, generally speaking, in a hole in a tree, 

 with only a very minute aperture. Sometimes, though 

 I think rarely, the nest is outside the tree, but 

 screened from observation by some casual dislodge- 

 ment of the bark, or in some similar way. It is made 

 of dry grass, small twigs, shreds of moss, with a 

 lining of feathers. It is very hard to distinguish 

 between the eggs of the Creeper, which number from 

 six to nine, and those of the Blue Titmouse and the 



