Birds by Land and Sea 



doves, which were for ever cooing in the wood, or rush- 

 ing out with clapping wings whenever approached ; 

 but one interesting little bird seen there at times 

 deserves to be mentioned. The tree-creeper is an odd 

 little creature, odd in his structure and ways, as well 

 as in the sense that he is the only member of his family 

 found in our islands. He is said to be plentiful in 

 Wales, but a bird so silent and close in all its ways 

 would need to be very plentiful to become obvious. 

 You will probably see him before you hear him. A 

 movement on the outline of the trunk of a tree 

 catches your eye, and suggests the presence of some 

 creature more in the nature of what is generally 

 understood by a creeping thing than this tree- 

 creeping bird. Now he appears on the left, then 

 on the right, outline of the bole, and at each appear- 

 ance he is higher'; for, as a closer view reveals, he 

 is working his way up in a spiral, searching the bark 

 for the small life upon which he subsists. He 

 reminds one of the woodpeckers by his peeping 

 ways, and resembles them also in the fact that 

 constant pressure in climbing has stiffened his tail 

 feathers as in those birds. But there the resemblance 

 ends, for this little five-inch bird is cast and coloured 

 more on the model of the brown-backed, white- 

 breasted warblers, except that its finely pointed and 

 curved bill is even more delicately adapted than 

 theirs for picking out microscopic trifles from their 

 minute places of concealment in the bark. I would 

 give a good deal for a quarter of an hour's plain talk 



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