28 



Forest Birds. 



captures these insects with its beak. It has no 

 barbed tongue like the woodpecker, but the long, 

 curved beak (measuring about the length of the 

 head itself) is thrust into the crevice of the bark to 

 extract the lurking insect. The Creeper is silent in 

 its work a characteristic attributable in a great 

 measure to the formation of its beak (Fig. 8), which 



FIG. 7. 



Tail of Nuthatch. 

 From nature. Natural size. 



is too slender to be used for tapping the trees, or 

 removing the bark. Neither has it a loud voice, 

 like the woodpecker, to wake the stillness of the 

 wood, for 'its note is soft and shrill, resembling the 

 syllables twee-twee, and this is rarely uttered save 

 as a call note to its mate. 



It will be seen in the accompanying plate, 

 that the bird on the left assumes in general outline 



