40 THE BIRDS ABOUT Us. 



know it, and as nothing else. If it ever happens 

 elsewhere than on a tree-trunk, it must be by acci- 

 dent. I found one once that had evidently been 

 blown into the room through an open window dur- 

 ing a storm. Its effort to creep over the wall was 

 not a success, and when it finally sank to the floor, 

 its claws took such hold upon the carpet that I could 

 not dislodge it without injury. Any attempt to touch 

 it was resented by vicious thrusts of its beak, which 



I found quite equal 

 to piercing the skin. 

 I had in this in- 

 stance an opportu- 

 nity of hearing its 

 voice, and all I could 

 make of it was an 

 impatient sibilant 

 squeak, a tsit, not 

 unlike the hiss of a 

 captured bat. I 

 have never heard 

 any other sound or 

 attempt at singing. 

 This bird is not un- 

 Brown Tree-creeper. known to the Middle 



States in summer, 



and I believe occasionally nests with us. Many 

 years ago I found one of these birds busy about an 

 old apple-tree, and carrying flurry material into an 

 irregular cavity caused by the loosening of a sheet of 

 the bark. 

 There are thirteen wrens and varieties or geograph- 



