340 BIRDS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



to encounter the severest winters. It is a very active and in- 

 dustrious bird, always running over the branches of trees, 

 searching with sharp eyes, sometimes rapping with its bill, and 

 occasionally striking off a bit of moss or bark, to dislodge the 

 grub below ; the only time it has for resting is at night, when, 

 like others of the tribe, it holds by its feet to the bark and 

 sleeps, head downwards. It seems almost indifferent to the 

 presence of man, unless he comes near it with obviously bad 

 intentions. When it spends the winter here, it often comes 

 near our dwellings in search of food. Its flight, when seen 

 here, seldom extends farther than from one tree to another ; but 

 it must have great power to sustain itself on the wing, since 

 on one of his homeward voyages, Audubon saw one come on 

 board his vessel at the distance of three hundred miles from 

 the shore ; it alighted on the rigging, and began to search for 

 food, but it had fasted too long, and in the course of the night 

 it died. 



This species is partial to pine forests, where it feeds on the 

 seeds of the trees. Its nest is made in dead stumps, not high 

 above the ground. We have at present no account of its 

 breeding within the limits of our State. 



The BLACK AND WHITE CREEPER, Certhia varia, comes from 

 the south in April, and is seen running nimbly round the 

 trunks and large branches of trees, in search of insects, particu- 

 larly ants and their larvse, which are its favorite food. It is 

 an unsuspicious bird, always too much taken up with its own 

 affairs to pay much regard to an observer. It moves by short 

 successive hops, with great rapidity, and in all directions with 

 equal facility, with the head either up or down. It has but a 

 very short flight, from one tree to another. Its notes are a 

 series of tweats, rapidly pronounced, the last greatly prolonged. 



Audubon says that at the south they breed in holes in trees, 

 but Nuttall found a nest in Roxbury, on the ground, protected 

 by a shelving rock, and composed of coarse strips of the inner 

 bark of the hemlock, which overshaded the spot. The lining 

 was a thin layer of hair. It contained four young birds, about 



