136 



THE BIRDS OF THE WOODS 



and most of Germany. It is a quiet, confiding bird, often observed as it dexter- 

 ously climbs the trunks or larger branches of trees. It never tries the twigs, and 

 always selects such trees as have rough bark: these it commences to search at 

 the roots for insects and their larva?, and continues its hunt to the top, working 

 up in spirals, and, unlike the nuthatch, never with its head downwards. In 



climbing, this bird uses its stiff, 

 pointed tail, and, when it reaches 

 the top, flies down to the bottom 

 of the next tree, up which it works 

 in similar fashion. Insects are its 

 chief food, seeds being eaten only 

 in case of necessity. Although 

 generally seen alone or in pairs, 

 the creeper usually sleeps with 

 several of its fellows in the same 

 hole. The nest is built in a hole 

 beneath the bai-k of a tree, and, 

 if the cavity be very deep, the bird 

 reduces it to a suitable size with 

 a woven mass of fine twigs, the 

 1 m -t itself being made of strips of 

 inner bark, together with grass, 

 moss, rootlets, and occasionally 

 feathers. The eggs are laid in 

 the beginning of April and again 

 in June. As the young do not 

 leave the nest till the shafts of 

 their tail-feathers are stiff', they 

 are able to climb forthwith, 

 although the tail is still only half- 

 fledged. The plumage is brown 

 above, streaked and spotted with 

 whitish grey, the under surface 

 being silvery white. The tail- 

 feathers are brown and long, with 

 chestnut shafts and stiff* points. 



TREE-CREEPER AT WORK. 



Great The shrikes may 



Grey Shrike. \, e re g ar ded as the 

 binls-of-prey among the great 

 assemblage of perching birds. Their largest representative in Europe, the 

 great grey shrike {Lanius excubitor), is found in small isolated patches of 

 woodland and the outer ring of a forest, from which it can generally reach the 

 fields. Also met with in tall hedges in open plains, it is never seen where there is 

 marsh. It is distributed all over central and northern Europe, up to the Arctic 

 Circle, but not beyond the Asiatic border. North of Germany it is known only 



