520 BRITISH BIRDS. 



did not seem at all alarmed, but came down from its high perch and flitted 

 to the face of the perpendicular rock, where we brought it down with a 

 half-charge of dust-shot. We did not hear either bird utter any note. 



Canon Tristram frequently met with this bird in his ornithological 

 wanderings through Palestine, and found it a permanent resident in the 

 rocky defiles of the northern and central parts of that country. He 

 writes : " We never saw it in the south, where probably the cliffs are too 

 parched and dry to supply it with its insect food. I know few ornitho- 

 logical sights more interesting than to watch this beautiful little creature 

 as it flits along the face of a long line of cliff, with a crab-like siding 

 motion, rapidly expanding and closing its wings in a succession of jerks, 

 and showing its brilliant crimson shoulders at each movement. It gene- 

 rally works up the gorge at nearly the same elevation, with its breast 

 towards the face of the rock, and moves close to its surface in a perpen- 

 dicular position, rapidly darting forth its bill and picking out minute 

 insects as it passes along. In a few minutes it would return down the 

 valley again, quartering the rock in a line parallel to its former course." 



The Wall-Creeper is a bird most probably united to its partner for life, 

 and is therefore usually seen in pairs, and each season the same nesting- 

 place is chosen. They certainly are not very noisy birds, and their call- 

 note, according to Bailly, resembles the syllables pli-pli-pli-pli. Naumann 

 compares their note to that of the Bullfinch, and also states that they have 

 a song somewhat resembling that of the Creeper ; but several careful 

 observers affirm that they have never heard the birds utter a call-note at 

 all. Bailly states that the bird is constantly in motion, fluttering like a 

 butterfly from one rock to another, sometimes remaining in mid-air sus- 

 pended before a cleft in the rocks. It does not climb so easily or so 

 gracefully as the Woodpeckers and the Creepers, nor does it support itself 

 by its tail as those birds continually do. Sometimes, according to this 

 naturalist, the bird will also visit the branches of trees growing on the 

 rocks in its haunts. 



The breeding-season of this bird varies a little according to the situa- 

 tion; in some localities it commences in the latter part of April, in 

 others not until the beginning of June. The nest is placed in the 

 crevices of the rocks, sometimes in places quite inaccessible. A hand- 

 some nest of this bird in my collection is very elaborately built. Its chief 

 material is moss, evidently gathered from the rocks and stones, inter- 

 mingled with a few grasses, and compactly felted together with hairs, 

 wool, and a few feathers. The lining is almost exclusively composed of 

 wool and hair, very thickly and densely felted together. The nest is about 

 one and a half inches deep inside, and the internal diameter is about three 

 inches ; outside it measures two and a half inches in depth and is about 

 six inches in diameter. The eggs of the Wall- Creeper are from three to 



