7 ib CREEPER. 



a collar : the belly, fides, thighs, and under tail coverts, are grey* 

 with a little mixture of yellowifh on the lower part of the breaft 

 and fides : quills grey brown : tail of a fhining biackifh colour ; 

 the ten middle feathers have the outer margin green gold, bronzed 

 with copper, and outer one margined with grey ; all of them 

 are tipped with grey : legs and claws black. 

 Female. The female differs from the male, merely in having yellow fpots 



on the fides, according to Brijfon * ; others give it a red band like 

 the male, but placed lower on the breaft, and all the other colours 

 lefs lively. 

 Variety. Buffon mentions one feen at the Cape of Good Hope by M. le 



Vicomte de Querohent, which had the throat grey brown, mixed 

 with green and blue : on the breaft was a band of a fire-colour : 

 the head and upper parts of the body mixed with green on the 

 back, and towards the tail with blue : wings light brown above ; 

 beneath gilded yellow : tail feathers biackifh : bill and legs 

 black. 



This gentleman adds, that it fang very prettily ; that it lived 

 on infeffs, and the neffar of flowers-, but, in refpect to the firft part 

 of its food, the throat of the bird was fo narrow that it could not 

 fwallow the ordinary forts of flies, if at all above the common fize. 



Buffon feems to think this laft bird a young one of the laft men- 

 mentioned, not come to its full plumage -, and that the true female 

 may turn out to be the following : 



* Om. vol. vi. fup. p. 1 17. 



Certhia 



