BROWN CREEPER. 387 
BROWN CREEPER. 
CERTHIA FAMILIARIS AMERICANA. 
Cuar. Above, grayish brown, each feather streaked with dull white ; 
rump rufous; wings with two bars of dull or reddish white; beneath, dull 
white or pale gray. Length about 5% inches. 
Vest. In deep woods, placed behind a sliver of loose bark on a 
decayed tree or stub; made of shreds of bark and wszea moss firmly 
interwoven and set on a platform of twigs. It is sometimes lined with 
feathers. 
£ggs. 4-8; white or creamy, — when freshly laid, tinted with pale 
roseate, — spotted with reddish brown ; 0.60 X 0.50. 
This industrious forager for insects, chiefly dwelling in the 
seclusion of the forest, is but seldom seen in the summer; but 
on the approach of winter, with other hungry wanderers of 
similar habits such as the small Woodpeckers and Nuthatches, 
it makes its appearance on the wooded skirts of the village, 
particularly among the pine-trees, and occasionally becomes 
familiar enough to pay a passing visit to the orchard. In this 
country, however, the species is neither common nor familiar, 
nor is it more abundant in the Northern than the Middle 
States, though its breeding range extends from Pennsylvania to 
Newfoundland. 
The bill of the Creeper not being of sufficient strength to 
probe the wood, it rests contented with examining the crevices 
of the bark for insects and their eggs, proceeding leisurely 
upwards or downwards in straight or spiral lines towards the 
top of the tree, dodging dexterously to the opposite side from 
the observer, and only resuming its occupation when assured 
of solitude and safety. While thus employed it utters at short 
intervals a sharp, quick, rather grating note, by which its resort 
may be discovered, though it requires some time and a good 
eye to perceive it if on the upper branches of a tall tree. 
Though it lives chiefly on insects, it also, according to Wilson, 
collects the seeds of the pine for food, and is particularly fond 
of the vermin which prey on those kinds of trees. In the 
thick forests which it inhabits in the Northern and Western 
