WALL-CREEPER. 519 



Large slugs had been used to kill it, and it was so mangled that 

 Mr. Xaylor could not determine the sex, and had great difficulty in 

 making it all presentable; however, it was managed somehow, and 

 remains in his possession still." Following these remarks is a description 

 of this specimen, which places its authentication beyond all question. 



The range of the Wall-Creeper is a somewhat wide one, extending 

 across the Palsearctic Region between lat. 30 and 50, and just entering 

 the limits of the Oriental Region in the Himalayas and China. Probably 

 in all portions of its range it is a resident, only leaving the higher districts 

 in winter to retire lower down the mountain. It breeds in nearly all the 

 mountains of Central and Southern Europe, from the Sierra Nevada in 

 Spain, the Pyrenees, the Swiss Alps, the Vosges Mountains, Italy, Sardinia, 

 Greece, Asia Minor, to the Caucasus. In Asia it inhabits the mountainous 

 portions of Turkestan, Afghanistan, Cashmere, the Himalayas, and the 

 mountains of Kansu. It occasionally wanders into Northern Germany ; 

 according to Riippell it has been found in Egypt and Abyssinia (the only 

 authority for the bird south of the Mediterranean) ; and it has been 

 obtained in China in winter near Pekin and Foochow. Although the 

 range of this bird is such a wide one, it does not exhibit any great variation 

 in colour, and skins from Samarkand in Turkestan are not any paler than 

 those from the Pyrenees, although the climate of these two countries is, 

 as has often been shown, well adapted to produce variations in the colour 

 of the plumage. 



The haunts of the Wall-Creeper are amongst the mountains, in wild 

 defiles and gorges, amongst the cliffs and rocks. During my visit to the 

 Pyrenees in the winter of 1881-2 I made the acquaintance of this charming 

 bird in the mountains near Pierrefitte. Near the highest point of the pass 

 which we reached, and which must have been 2500 feet or more above the 

 sea, we caught sight of the bird on the rocks. When we first saw it the 

 sun was shining in our eyes, and all we could see was a bird flitting round 

 an angle of the rocky cliff, and looking almost black, on its shadow side. 

 The moment we saw the bird, however, we recognized it as the species 

 we were in search of. The flitting, uncertain, bat-like or butterfly-like 

 flight was most peculiar, and arrested the attention at once. The bird 

 disappeared up the cliff on a wall of an old road above. Finding no trace 

 of it beyond, we turned back and caught sight of it again flying down 

 from the wall to the face of the cliff. As it flew it showed so much white 

 on the wing that for a moment we thought it was a Lesser Spotted Wood- 

 pecker ; but when it alighted on the face of the cliff head downward, and 

 began to proceed in a somewhat zigzag course by a series of jerks, we 

 should have been quite sure of the identity of the species even if the red 

 on the wings had not been visible in the sunshine. We had scarcely shot 

 the bird when we saw its mate sitting on a projecting spur of rock. It 



