88 THE BROWN CREEPER. 



with the colors of this open winter. Its long, slender bill, 

 much curved, is well adapted to picking insects and their 

 larvae from the crevices of the bark, while the sharp claws 

 and rigid-pointed tail-feathers are a sufficient support to the 

 ascending movements. It is too graceful and dignified ever 

 to hang head-downward like Nuthatches and Titmice. It 

 is also rather shy, frequently keeping the opposite side of the 

 tree on seeing the observer, and then it is necessary to get 

 behind a tree also, and, looking for it some distance higher 

 than the point where it disappeared, one may get a glimpse 

 of it again. Its flight is very nervous and quick. In spring 

 it will be much more numerous, as the greater number of 

 this species passes south in autumn and north in spring, 

 when it has a soft and melodious song. 



It is now well made out that the ordinary nesting-place of 

 this species is behind a loose strip of bark on a dead tree or 

 a stub, from five to fifteen feet from the ground. Composed 

 externally of dried twigs arranged lengthwise between the 

 bare mast-like trunk and the loosened bark, and so assum- 

 ing a crescent form elevated at both ends and depressed 

 in the middle, the interior and bulk of the nest are of shreds 

 of the inner bark of various trees, with, perhaps, some 

 usnea and spider's cocoons, and lined with still finer shreds 

 of bark or with feathers. If the bark is so close to the 

 tree as barely to admit the nest, the external structure of 

 twigs is dispensed with. The tree or stub chosen is gen- 

 erally of the pine or fir, and is nearly denuded of bark. 

 The eggs, generally five or six, averaging .59 X .48, are 

 delicate white, rosy when fresh, finely marked with brown 

 and purplish-brown. They resemble those of the Titmice 

 and Nuthatches. 



This diminutive species, some 5.50 long, is at home alike 

 in Europe and throughout North America. 



