BLACK AND WHITE CREEPING WARBLER. 185 



breast, where there is an area of plain white, the 

 colors are arranged mostly in alternate streaks. 

 Although much more slender, the creeper is just 

 about the length of the chickadee, of whom he re- 

 minds you by his fondness for tree trunks and 

 branches. His habits of work, though, are much 

 more suggestive of the nuthatch and brown 

 creeper, and as the three are often found together 

 during migration, it is easy to compare them. 



The black and white creeper is more active than 

 the others ; that is, he has more of the restless 

 warbler habit of flitting. He is not as painstak- 

 ing nor as systematic as the brown creeper ; and 

 has neither as good head nor feet as the nuthatch. 

 Where the brown creeper would go over a tree 

 trunk twice, to be sure that nothing had escaped 

 him, the black and white creeper will run up the 

 side of a trunk a little way, then bob about on 

 the branches for a moment, and flit off to another 

 tree. He will hang head down from a branch to 

 peck at the bark, and circle round a small tree 

 horizontally, but I have never seen him go down 

 a tree head first, as the nuthatch does, or walk 

 around the underside of a branch. He will stand 

 and look over the edge of a branch as if trying 

 to see around underneath, but if he concludes to 

 go to the other side he will flit around instead of 

 walking. His song is a high-keyed trill, and as 

 he is protected by being nearly the color of the 

 gray bark he is usually clinging to, it is a grate- 

 ful help to the discovery of his whereabouts. 



