70 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
peculiar cry of cree-cree-cree-cree, which is much less often 
heard than the others. Their indescribable song is a very 
pleasant one, being somewhat like the far finer music of the 
Winter Wren, and is varied, some of the notes being loud and 
sweet, while others are much feebler and less full in tone. It 
is repeated both in spring and summer, but never, I think, be- 
fore March. 
The Creepers are harmless birds, and as well as their allies, 
the titmice and nuthatches, should be considered extremely 
useful, since they help largely to preserve our trees and to pro- 
tect forest-growth. While men continue unwisely to destroy 
large woods in this State, thus exposing others and leaving no 
provision for the future, these birds will be more and more 
needed, to remove those prominent causes of vegetable decay, 
injurious insects. Therefore they should be preserved. 
§7. The Troglodytida, or wrens, form a distinct group, 
though quite closely allied to several families. They are insec- 
tivorous, and pass their time near the ground. Though not 
climbers, they are eminently creepers. They are migratory 
but not gregarious. They are for the most part (possibly in 
all cases) musical. They lay several or many eggs in one set ; 
these are small, white, reddish, or brown, and generally finely 
marked. The Troglodytes inhabit shrubbery or woodland, and 
build their nest in some cavity, such as the hole of a tree; 
but the Cistothori frequent marshes or meadows, and build a 
globular nest, which is suspended among the reeds, or in the 
grass. The Troglodytide are characterized as follows: colors 
plain; general size less than six inches (though in one North 
American species eight) ; bill rather long and slender, unbris- 
tled and unnotched ; nostrils exposed, but overhung by a scale ; 
tarsi scutellate ; toes partly united ; primaries ten, but the first 
very short; tail-feathers not acuminate (fig. 3). 
The Motacillide (§8) are in New England represented by 
one species only (belonging to the subfamily Anthinw). They 
possess the following features: average length, about six 
inches(?); bill slender, somewhat notched, scarcely bristled, 
but above “slightly concave at base ;” nostrils exposed ; tarsus 
