8o6 



The Sparrow-like Birds 



or buffy beneath, the stiff tail-feathers being employed as in the Woodpeckers 

 as a prop, keeping the bird pressed closely against the tree-trunk, with which its 

 streaked plumage perfectly harmonizes. The best-known species is the Tree 

 Creeper (C. familiaris), which is quite widely distributed in both Old and New 

 Worlds, though modified into a large number of more or less distinct geographical 

 races in the different parts of its habitat. The typical form occurs in southern 

 and central Europe, whence it extends to northern Germany and Scandinavia, 

 a slight insular race (C. f. britannka) occupying the British Islands, another 

 (C. /. scandulaca) eastern Europe and Siberia, and still others Kashmir (C. f. 

 hodgsoni) and Japan (C.f. japonica) ; while in North America there are six or 

 seven more. As the habits of all the forms are practically identical, the Brown 



Creeper (C. f. americana) of eastern North 

 America may be selected for more extended 

 mention. It is a quiet, unobtrusive, but 

 busy and restless bird, usually noted during 

 the colder parts of the year, "nimbly creep- 

 ing up the trunks of trees, ascending in 

 more or less of a spiral, and when the first 

 limbs are reached, flying to the foot of 

 another tree and repeating the perform- 

 ance." Its food consists almost entirely of 

 minute insects, which it seeks incessantly in 

 the cracks and crevices of the bark. Its 

 notes consist of a soft, cheeping call note, and 

 during the nesting season of a very sweet, 

 clear song which Mr. Brewster says some- 

 what resembles that of the Carolina Tit- 

 mouse (Partis carolinensis*),' but is "in- 

 finitely purer and sweeter, a wild, clear voice 

 that one feels would lose its peculiar charm if exposed to cheerful light and 

 commonplace surroundings." It breeds mostly from the northern border of 

 the United States northward, where amid the cool, coniferous forests it finds a 

 congenial home. The nest is usually placed behind loose plates of semi- 

 detached bark, on the trunk of a tree at no great height from the ground, 

 and is so situated that the overhanging bark forms a shelter from the rain, 

 the nest proper being constructed of the fine inner bark of trees, moss, etc., 

 and sometimes lined with feathers. The eggs, five to eight in number, are 

 white, spotted with reddish brown. 



Wall Creeper. The most striking member of the family is the Wall Creeper 

 (Tichodroma muraria) of the alpine regions of central and southern Europe, 

 Asia, and northeastern Africa. The sole tenant of its genus, it is about seven 

 inches in length, has a very long, slender, and nearly straight bill, and very 

 large but rounded wings. The plumage is slate-gray, darker on the head and 

 rump and white on the throat and upper breast, while the wing-quills are blackish 

 tipped with white and the wing-coverts almost entirely crimson; in summer 



FIG. 224. American Brown Creeper, 

 Certhia familiaris americana. 



