ORDER PASSERES. 389 



colours, as Dr. Latham observes in his synopsis, would lead 

 us to consider it a distinct species. 



The PicuouLi are small birds of this family, all of the 

 New Continent. They all alike inhabit the forests, and climb 

 against trees, leaning on their tail. They live on worms, 

 which they extract from the bark ; lay their eggs in the 

 hollows of trees ; do not walk on the ground, and they fly in 

 the manner of the creepers and woodpeckers. They remain 

 single or in pairs, and never in families ; begin to climb 

 against the trees, about three feet from the ground ; and do 

 not draw the worms from the bark with their tongue like 

 the woodpeckers, but introduce their bill to seize them. If 

 the worms and insects are too much concealed, they tap with 

 their bills against the trees like the woodpeckers. They 

 also sometimes use them as a lever to raise the bark. 



Of TicHODROMA there is but one species in Europe, the 

 Certhia Muraria of Linnaeus. This inhabits divers coun- 

 tries, but is not found in England : nor would it appear *to 

 be a native of Sweden, as Limiaeus does not class it among 

 the birds of that country. It is seen on the range of the 

 Caucasus, and is supposed with some reason to be also a 

 native of China. Its usual haunts are peaked and rugged 

 rocks, and the walls of ruined towers, and such like ancient 

 structures. It does not climb on trees like the common 

 creeper, and chooses for its nestling place the clefts and 

 crevices of solitary rocks. It voyages alone, and retires 

 southwards about autumn to pass the winter. Its disposi- 

 tion is gay, and its voice agreeable. Of the habits of the 

 other species, nothing is known. 



Of the subdivision Nectarinia, those birds called Guit- 

 GUiTs are many of them found in South America. They 

 live on insects, to which some of them unite the sweet and 

 viscous juice of the sugar-cane, which they extract by sink- 

 ing their bills into the clefts or fissures in the stalks, from 

 which a superabundance of this saccharine liquid trickles. 



