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SUBSPECIES. The Long-billed Marsh Wren is divided into several subspecies; the 
Eastern Marsh Wren, the only form in which we are directly interested in eastern Canada, 
is the type form of the species. 
Wide wet swamps and quaking bogs grown with cat-tails or reeds are 
the places frequented by this wren. 
FAMILY—CERTHIIDA. CREEPERS. 
The name of the only eastern Canadian Creeper, the Brown Creeper, 
describes the bird very well. It is a small brown bird that creeps or 
climbs woodpecker-fashion on the trunks and larger branches of forest 
trees. It is smaller than any Canadian Woodpecker and the bill is com- 
paratively long, light, delicately tapered, and sickle-shaped (Figure 64, 
p. 28), adapted for extracting small insects and insects’ eggs from narrow 
cavities but not for chiselling in even the softest wood or bark to reach 
them. The tail is rather long and stiff and the claws are quite long and 
much curved. 
726. Brown Creeper. AMERICAN BROWN CREEPER. FR.—LE GRIMPEREAU D’ANERI-— 
QuE. Certhia familiaris. L, 5-66. Plate XLVI A. 
Distinctions. The brown and white stripings, lacking in decided design; the fine, 
delicate, sickle-shaped bill and long stiff tail feathers, worn on the tips, are easily recognized 
distinctions of the species. 
Field Marks. Our only small brown bird with pronounced tree-creeping habits. 
Nesting. Behind the loose bark of trees in nest of twigs, strips of bark, bits of dead - 
wood, moss, etc. 
Distribution. As a species, occupying most of the northern hemisphere. In eastern 
North America the Eastern Creeper is the native subspecies, in Canada extending west as 
far as the prairie provinces and north to beyond settlement. 
SUBSPECIES. The Brown Creeper occurs in the Old as well as the New World. 
The species is divided into several subspecies in America, only one of which, the Eastern 
Brown Creeper C.f. americania, occurs in eastern Canada. 
Pressed tightly to the trunk of forest trees the Brown Creeper may 
be seen spiralling up the perpendicular trunk and industriously gleaning 
from every crack and crevice in the bark. Reaching the section where 
the branches begin to grow smaller and the bark smooth it drops down 
to the base of an adjoining tree and works upward again, never hurrying, 
never pausing, filling its stomach with small beetles, larve, and insect 
eggs. The skill with which this bird can cling to smooth surfaces is remark- 
able. The writer once knew a Brown Creeper to climb the polished 
corner of a black walnut bookcase with as much unconcern as if it had 
been the roughest barked oak in the woods. 
Economic Status. The Brown Creeper is purely insectivorous in its 
habits and its constant microscopic attention to every little crevice in 
the rough bark must account for innumerable insect pests. Most of 
its work is done in the woods but as the bird frequently appears in the 
orchard and on shade and ornamental trees about the town and house 
the species has a powerful beneficial influence. 
FAMILY—SITTIDAH. NUTHATCHES. 
The Nuthatches are small, woodpecker-like birds in general habit 
but their toes are of the usual passerine type with three toes in front and 
