LAND BIRDS. 681 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
Bill more than .50 inch in length. 
Adult: Crown with a median stripe of rich brown, bordered on each side with brownish 
black; back brownish black, streaked with white, the rump and upper tail-coverts cinnamon; 
under parts pure white along the middle line, the sides, from neck to tail, pale brown, 
unspotted; wings and tail brown, with numerous narrow dark cross-bars; lores and a line 
over the eye white. Sexes alike. 
Length 4.25 to 5.50 inches; wing 1.80 to 2.10; tail 1.60 to 1.90; culmen .54. 
Family 68. CERTHIIDA‘. Creepers. 
Only one Michigan species, the Brown Creeper. 
309. Brown Creeper. Certhia familiaris americana Bonap. (726) 
Synonyms: Common Creeper, American Creeper, American Brown Creeper, Tree 
Creeper.—Certhia americana, Bonap., 1838.—Certhia familiaris, Vieill., 1807, Nutt., 
1832, Wilson, 1808, Aud., 1839.—Certhia familiaris fusca, A. O. U. Committee, 1899.— 
Certhia familiaris americana, Brewst., 1879, A. O. U. Check-list, 1886. 
Streaked with brown and black above, except on the rump, which is 
bright reddish brown; below dull white or ashy, unstreaked; wing-feathers 
marbled with whitish or buffy. The curved, awl-like bill and long, sharp, 
woodpecker-like tail-feathers, combined with the very long, sharp, curved 
claws, are distinctive. 
Distribution.—Eastern North America, breeding from the northern 
and more elevated parts of the United States northward, and casually 
farther south, migrating southward in winter. 
This little bird, although known to comparatively few, is nevertheless 
an abundant migrant throughout the state and a common summer resident 
in all forested parts, especially where evergreens are found. It is also 
by no means a rare winter resident in most of the Lower Peninsula, very 
possibly everywhere in the state. Like most other species, however, the 
bird is distinctly migratory, and it seems reasonably certain that those 
individuals which linger through the winter at any point are not the ones 
which are there in summer, but have come from farther north. Owing 
to this shifting of the whole species, and the fact that in many places some 
individuals are present the year around, the exact times of migration are 
somewhat difficult to determine. The greatest movement, however, 
seems to take place between April 15 and May 15, and again between 
September 15 and October 15, when the bird is much more common than 
at other seasons and appears in groves, parks and orchards, often in con- 
siderable numbers. There are no records of specimens killed on Michigan 
lighthouses except in the fall, the records for Spectacle Reef Light being 
September 14, 1894, September 26, 1886 and October 5, 1889, 1890 and 
1895. From its habit of creeping up the sides of buildings, as well as of 
trees, it not infrequently enters open windows and is one of the small 
birds most frequently entrapped in this way. 
The habits of the Brown Creeper are very definite and characteristic. 
It alights suddenly at the bottom of a tree and climbs spirally up 
the trunk, travelling by little jumps or “hitches,” pausing every few 
inches to probe some crevice in the bark for food and then pursu‘ng its 
upward course. Often it makes one or more complete circuits of the trunk 
