7 
The eggs are oblong, often pyriform like those of Woodpeckers, pure white, with a few scattered 
spots rose-coloured or pale red in colour and situated on the larger end. In length, when 
oblong, they measure 18 to 19 millims., and when pyriform 172 to 18 millims., and in both cases 
13 to 14 millims. in diameter. 
“The male brings food to the sitting female several times during the day; and when the 
young are hatched both parents hunt assiduously after food for their progeny. The young birds 
do not leave the nest until able to fly sufficiently well to accompany their parents on the rocks. 
They are soon able to creep about with the aid of their feet, which are furnished with curved 
claws; but their parents will not allow them to venture on the rocks until their wings are strong 
enough to assist them in their ascents. When, during the first few days after they leave the nest, 
they are tired of climbing, they rest, holding on at a fissure, and are fed there. When, however, 
able to fly and feed themselves, their parents leave them ; and each young bird then lives a solitary 
life until the following spring. During this time they are silent; but the old birds, on the con- 
trary, call to each other sometimes, especially when, living in pairs after the breeding-season, 
they wish to rejoin after a short separation of an hour or so. 
“The Wall-creeper is a lively, restless bird, very wild even when frequenting the interior 
of towns. It is difficult to approach near it; and as it is continually on the move, it is not easy 
to shoot one. It is occasionally captured by hooks placed along walls or rocks which it visits 
daily ; but they must be baited with some insect that it is fond of, such as a spider or a bunch of 
spider’s eggs, which food it prefers to flies and gnats. It also feeds on larve, ant’s eggs, and 
small worms. Its flight, which consists of bounds by means of continual movements of the wings, 
is generally not elevated, soft, and not long-continued; but as it does not leave the rocks, its 
wanderings cannot be difficult; nor are its migrations extended far. They retire for the night 
into holes in the walls or rocks.” 
Dr. Jerdon says that in India he found that the food of this bird consisted generally of 
spiders and coleoptera &c.; and Captain Hutton gives the contents of the stomach of those he 
procured in Afghanistan as “‘ various insects, abundance of ticks, such as infest cattle, &c.” 
Naumann says that its call-note is like that of the Bullfinch (Pyrrhula vulgaris), and it has 
a Creeper-like song consisting of several short, loud, and melodious strophes, in which the notes 
di didi zédé are often repeated with variations, and may in some parts be compared to the song 
of the Starling. Not only does the male sing, more particularly during the breeding-season, but 
also the female; and one hears it utter the above strophes in the winter season. When singing, 
it moves the body about, flutters its wings, and moves its tail, climbing incessantly about the 
rocks during the time it is singing. Both Dr. Jerdon and Dr. Leith Adams, who have seen the 
species in India, state that it has no call-note, so far as they had heard. 
The subjoined excellent notes on the nesting-habits of this bird are from the pen of Baron 
Richard von Konig Warthausen :—‘“ The nidification of this bird puzzled naturalists for a long 
time. Kramer gives the first information on this head; he states that it nests in inaccessible holes 
in the rocks and old buildings, as also in hollow trees, and even in skulls in the dead-houses. What 
is partly true and partly fabulous in this account has, for want of better information, been repro- 
duced in most later works. Schinz and Thienemann were the next to give further information. 
The latter unfortunately only obtained authentic eggs after he had published the account in his 
213 
