CERTHIIDAE 571 



bird {Pardalotus) has scattered white dots above, and scarlet or 

 yellow tips to the primary coverts ; Dicaeum, often shews a 

 longitudinal black band below ; while bars and streaks occur not 

 infrequently. The bill is blackish, or in Bicaeum erythrorliynchum 

 reddish. The female is almost invariably duller. 



These small birds frequent woods and gardens, the little flocks 

 often haunting lofty trees near rivers ; they hop briskly among 

 the boughs, dart from bush to bush, creep about and cling like 

 Tits, and utter a long, low warble, or in Pardalotus a harsh 

 monotonous piping note. The food consists of insects, varied by 

 spiders, fruit, buds, seeds, and perhaps honey. Dicaeum and 

 PrioROchUus suspend from some twig a domed, pear-shaped nest 

 of white cottony material, frequently covered with grass or moss, 

 and decorated with caterpillars' excreta ; Pardalotus chooses old 

 Swallows' nurseries, or holes in trees and walls, or even tunnels a 

 short way into banks, making within a spherical fabric of roots, 

 grass, bark, and feathers. The two to five eggs are commonly 

 white, but in Prionochilus (^Piprisoma) squalidus they are redder, 

 with dense brown-pink or claret-coloured blotches or specks. 



Fam. XXX. Certhiidae. — The Creepers, a small, though wide- 

 spread group, occupy most of the Palaearctic and Nearctic Eegions ; 

 Africa from Benguela to Mashona-Land ; Australia and New 

 Guinea. The bill is long and generally decurved, but shorter 

 and straighter in Climacteris ; while nasal and rictal bristles are 

 absent. The metatarsi are of medium length and slender, though 

 stouter in Salpornis; Tichodroma and Climacteris have the scutes 

 fused ; and the toes — especially the hallux — have long, curved 

 claws. The wings vary from moderate and rounded to elongated 

 and pointed ; the tail is usually short and square, or very nearly 

 so, but has stiff, graduated, acuminate feathers in Gerthia. The 

 coloration of both sexes is brown, black, rufous, buff, grey, and 

 white, except in Tichodroma, which exhibits crimson wing-patches 

 on its grey, black, and white plumage. Bars and spots are 

 frequent, particularly beneath. 



The majority are tame birds, inhabiting thinly wooded dis- 

 tricts, often close to dwellings ; but the European and Asiatic 

 Tichodroma muraria, which has strayed to Britain, haunts moun- 

 tain cliffs, and, when on migration, walls also. They utter shrill 

 cries, or, more commonly, low reiterated notes, which in our Creeper 

 (Oerthia familiaris) are varied by a sweet and fairly loud song; 



