THE BROWN CREEPER 11 



him spending the whole day in satisfying his 

 hunger. 



There is one thing to be said for such a life : 

 the bird is never without something to take up 

 his mind. In fact, if he enjoys the pleasures of 

 the table half as well as some human beings seem 

 to do, his life ought to be one of the happiest 

 imaginable. 



How flat and thin he looks, and how perfectly 

 his colors blend with the grays and browns of 

 the mossy bark ! No wonder it is easy for us to 

 pass near him without knowing it. We under- 

 stand now what learned people mean when they 

 talk about the " protective coloration " of ani- 

 mals. A hawk flying overhead, on the lookout 

 for game, must have hard work to see this bit 

 of a bird clinging so closely to the bark as to be 

 almost a part of it. 



And if a hawk does pass, you may be pretty 

 sure the creeper will see him, and will flatten 

 himself still more tightly against the tree and 

 stay as motionless as the bark itself. He needs 

 neither to fight nor to run away. His strength, 

 as the prophet said, is to sit still. 



But look ! As the creeper comes to the upper 

 part of the tree, where the bark is less furrowed 

 than it is below, and therefore less likely to con- 

 ceal the scraps of provender that he is in search 



