122 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



bird to the majority of English people, though it is really quite 

 a common bird in most of our counties. Its single note, 

 w/ieest, is somewhat ventriloquial, and the bird cannot always 

 be detected by the sound. If once the note be recognised, 

 however, it is not long before the bird can be discovered, 

 as it pursues a course along a tree or branch, and then flies 

 down to a lower level, though even then it may escape obser- 

 vation, owing to its small size and sober colouring. It runs up 

 the trees in the manner of a tiny Woodpecker, but its weak 

 bill is not capable of hammering at the bark like the last- 

 named bird, or of prising off a large piece, as the Nuthatch 

 can do. Its food consists of tiny insects, and spiders consti- 

 tute a large portion of its prey, in pursuit of which the bird 

 climbs most actively, sometimes running up the trunk to the 

 top of the tree or turning aside to follow the course of some 

 large branch, examining both the upper and under sides of 

 the latter, but always steadily pursuing its course towards 

 the end of the bough. In many of its movements it is very 

 like a Tit, but it is never seen to turn back or move with its 

 head downwards, as a Nuthatch or a Woodpecker will do. 

 Both male and female are very assiduous in the care of their 

 young, but the latter are very noisy, and often lead to the dis- 

 covery of the well- concealed nest, by the squeaking that they 

 make on the arrival of the parent-birds with food. The 

 Creeper has been credited with a song, and some observers 

 have recorded the fact in this country. Although we have 

 been acquainted with the species from boyhood, we have never 

 heard a Tree-Creeper sing in England, though the continental 

 birds undoubtedly do sing, and we remember once hearing a 

 bird in France, which had a remarkably loud song, like that of 

 a Tit. So convinced were we that it was a Tit which was 

 singing, that we looked everywhere in the upper branches of 

 the tree for the songster, and at last caught sight of it a 

 Creeper clinging to the trunk only a few yards off from where 

 we stood, and singing vigorously a song which we never heard 

 our English bird give way to. So there may be som-ething in 

 the belief that the Creeper of the continent of Europe is not 

 quite the same as our British bird. 



West. Placed in a hole in a tree or behind the beam of a 

 shed, often behind a crevice in the bark of a tree, but always. 





