TREE CREEPER PIED WAGTAIL. 27 



Family CERTHIAD^E. 



TKEE CKEEPER (Certhia familiar is). 



Eesident ; pretty well distributed ; affecting well-wooded 

 districts. 



Plumage. Upper parts dark brown, mottled with yellowish 

 brown ; pale streak over eye. Throat and breast white, more 

 dingy on the belly. Wings brown, tipped with white and 

 barred with brownish yellow. Tail reddish brown ; rather 

 long stiff pointed feathers acting as fulcrum or prop when 

 climbing. Beak rather long and curved ; dark brown above 

 and yellowish below. Legs light brown. Length 5 in. Female 

 similar. Young more rufous, and shorter and less curved 

 beak. 



Language. Song not often heard, pleasing but brief. Call- 

 note, a low " cheep," and a plaintive " syou." 



Habits. It may be called a parasite on trees, as it spends 

 its whole life climbing spirally upwards on trunks, staying 

 its progress every now and then to probe some crevice for 

 insects with its bill, much like a mouse creeping, and most 

 unobtrusive. When watched it at once jerks round to the 

 other side of the tree. It never descends the trunk when 

 climbing, but on reaching the top flies down to the base and 

 again winds spirally up, and so on. Flight undulating. 



Food. Insects and their larvae, spiders, and seeds, especially 

 those of the Scotch fir. 



Nest. April onwards. Two broods. 



Site. Behind bark on a decaying tree, in hollow in tree, 

 and the like. 



Materials. Bark-strips, small twigs, rootlets, and grass, 

 lined with ligneous fibres, moss, fine grass, feathers, and hair. 



Eggs. Six to nine. White, spotted with reddish brown, 

 sometimes with grey underlying marks, like some of the Tits. 



Family MOTACILLIDJE. 



PIED WAGTAIL (Hotacilla lugubris). 



Partial resident. Well-distributed and common ; rarer 

 towards the north. 



Haunts. The vicinity of water, meadow-land, gardens, farm- 

 yards, and near human dwellings. 



Plumage. Generally variegated with black and white (hence 

 Pied). Upper parts, scapulars, chin, and throat black; sides 

 of neck and forehead white. Wing-coverts edged with white, 

 conspicuous in flight. Tail black, two outer feathers white, 



