The Birds’ Calendar 
as one would do in regard to any of his other 
friends. 
An inoffensive but wearisome little fellow is 
a brown-clad denizen of all our woods in win- 
ter, and commonly found not far away from 
the kinglets and chickadees, viz., the brown 
creeper, almost invariably seen on the trunks 
of trees whose bark is somewhat rough, as the 
smooth surface of other trees affords no hiding- 
place for the larve on which he subsists. He 
is a little over five inches long, white beneath, 
and finely marked with various shades of brown 
and white above. On first acquaintance it 
makes no particular impression other than that 
of being a neatly clad and busy little body ; 
but in course of time it becomes really irritat- 
ing to the feelings, from its exasperatingly con- 
scientious but cold-blooded diligence, which 
makes you feel as if you ought to admire it on 
moral grounds; but you cannot. In fact, too 
much conscience gets to be monotonous. The 
brown creeper is a virtuous drudge, without 
animation or variation. There is an air about 
him, as he silently climbs tree after tree, that 
makes his work seem as soulless as it is incessant. 
When you have seen it a minute you have seen 
it a year, and seeing one is seeing a thousand. 
28 
