364 COMMON CREEPER. 



parative list, while the opinions of Richardson 

 and Audubon are opposed to the separation. 



Upper parts of a British specimen yellowish 

 brown, intermixed with blackish brown, and yel- 

 lowish, and greyish white, the mixture caused 

 by the centre of the feathers being paler; the 

 same colours surround the eye, and pervade the 

 auriculars ; the rump and upper tail coverts are 

 gallstone yellow ; the quills are hair brown, and 

 have a diagonal band of yellowish white crossing 

 them about the middle, except the three first, 

 succeeded on each side by a deeper tint, and 

 forming almost three bars ; nearer the tips there 

 is another pale band on the outer webs ; the tail 

 also is hair brown, the shafts gallstone yellow ; 

 the under parts are white, tinted on the flanks 

 with yellowish brown. In American specimens, 

 the most prominent mark is the comparative 

 shortness of the tarsi, less size of the feet, and 

 shortness of all the claws, particularly that of the 

 hallux. The other varieties of plumage are diffi- 

 cult to distinguish, though, to a certain extent, 

 present ; and we have only more and more to 

 regret that the Prince of Musignano has not, in 

 his comparative list, given us the distinctions 

 which, he considers, will separate such closely 

 allied birds.* 



The next sub-family, Sitting contains also 

 only one British representative from the genus 

 Sitta, or Nuthatch, a small but interesting group 



* This constitutes the C. brachydactyla of Brehm. 



