XL VIII 



THE BROWN CREEPER 



NOT many days after Creepy appeared on the willow 

 tree I was surprised to see a deep-brown bird scarcely 

 as large as he alight at the bottom of this tree and begin 

 hunting over its surface in much the same way my nut- 

 hatch had done, except that he started at the bottom and 

 rapidly ran up instead of going down headfirst. Of course 

 I was interested because these two birds were so strangely 

 alike and yet so absolutely different. 



A pair of these brown creepers, for such they were, took 

 up their abode in our yard and orchard, hunting over the 

 various trees but preferring the willow to any of the others, 

 though they hunted the pecan tree and the great trans- 

 cendent crabapple from bottom to top almost every day. 

 It has always seemed strange to me that these birds will 

 hunt the same tree over perhaps half a dozen times every 

 day for weeks and yet always find some food every few 

 moments. 



Many insects lay their eggs in the rough bark of trees 

 and many little creatures hide there in the fall in order 

 to get some measure of protection during the winter. Of 

 course they are colored nearly like the bark, and un- 

 doubtedly are growing to look more like the bark every 

 generation, for only those that most closely resemble fhe 



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