210 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



but weakly if at all sjiinous at tip ; claws but moderately curved, 

 that of the hind toe more or less elongated. 



Genus Certhia, L. (Tree-creeper). 

 Size small ; bill about the length of the head, slender, com- 

 pressed, moderately incurved, the tip of the upper mandible 

 unemarginated. Toes and claws long; the latter extremely com- 

 pressed and tapering, that of the hind toe especially' elongated. 

 Tail cuneated, not very stiff, with protruding but scarcely spinous 

 tips, and in certain species rather long ; wings of mean length, 

 feeble, with the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth primaries subequal, 

 and the first nearly half the length of the second. Plumage of 

 open texture, and speckled brown above, more or less deeply 

 tinged with rufous on the rump, and plain (or at least streakless) 

 below. Sexes alike. 



This genus inhabits the temperate and even moderately cold 

 regions of the northern hemisphere, but has nowhere been 

 observed so numerous in species as in the Himalaya, where at 

 least tliree species occur, though in separate regions. The onlj' 

 others known are C/«;?iiitarJs of Europe and N. Asia, and C. 

 americana and C. albifrons of N. America — the former of these 

 hardly differing from C. familiaris. The bill of these little birds 

 is compressed and sickle-shaped, adapted for insertion into 

 chinks and crevices ; and their wings are suited onl}'^ for short 

 flights from one forest tree to another — the bird commonly alight- 

 ing on the trunk near the ground, and then spirally ascending, or 

 generally keeping to the opposite side of the bole to that at which 

 a spectator may be placed. Not unfrequently it will flutter down 

 to re-alight upon and again ascend the same tree ; but if attempt- 

 ing to descend otherwise than by flight, it never does so in the 

 manner of the Nuthatches, head foremost, but by a few hops 

 obliquely backward (as before stated of the Australian genus 

 CUmacteris) . The British species builds a warm feather-lined 

 nest in some convenient niche outside the trunk or lai'ge branch 

 of a tree, or against an old mossy paling ; laying numerous trans- 

 lucent white eggs with rufous specks ; and it often repeats a faint 

 chii'p, like that of a Regulus, and in spring utters a short weak 

 song. Its retiring habits, however, cause it to be much less 

 observed than from its commonness would otherwise be the case. 

 C. HiMALAYANA, Vigors, P. Z. S., 1831, p. 174 ; C. asiatica^ 



