Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 



berries, wild clierries, worms, and insects upon wiiicii tiiey have 

 gormandized. 



Nuttall gives the cedar birds credit for excessive politeness 

 to each other. He says he has often seen them passing a worm 

 from one to another down a whole row of beaks and back again 

 before it was finally eaten. 



When nesting time arrives— that is to say, towards the end of 

 the summer — they give up their gregarious habits and live in pairs, 

 billing and kissing like turtle-doves in the orchard or wild crab- 

 trees, where a flat, bulky nest is rather carelessly built of twigs, 

 grasses, feathers, strings — any odds and ends that may be lying 

 about. The eggs are usually four, white tinged with purple and 

 spotted with black. 



Apparently they have no moulting season; their plumage is 

 always the same, beautifully neat and full-feathered. Nothing 

 ever hurries or flusters them, their greatest concern apparently 

 being, when they alight, to settle themselves comfortably between 

 their over-polite friends, who are never guilty of jolting or crowd- 

 ing. Few birds care to take life so easily, not to say indolently. 



Among the French Canadians they are called Rfecollet, from 

 the color of their crest resembling the hood of the religious order 

 of that name. Every region the birds pass through, local names 

 appear to be applied to them, a few of the most common of 

 which are given above. 



Of the three waxwings known to scientists, two are found 

 in America, and the third in Japan. 



Brown Creeper 



( Certhia familiaris americana) Creeper family 



Length — 5 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the English 

 sparrow. 



Male and Female — Brown above, varied with ashy-gray stripes and 

 small, lozenge-shaped gray mottles. Color lightest on head, 

 increasing in shade to reddish brown near tail. Tail paler 

 brown and long; wings brown and barred with whitish. 

 Beneath grayish white. Slender, curving bill. 



Range — United States and Canada, east of Rocky Mountains. 



Migrations — April. September. Winter resident. 



This little brown wood sprite, the very embodiment of vir- 



145 



