Birds. 2565 



Wryneck (Yunx torquilla). Arriving with the cuckoo, and de- 

 parting a little later. Called the " cuckoo's mate," or " maid." 



Creeper (Certhia familiaris). The creeper is one of those birds 

 which suffer the least in hard winters, and is abroad in the hardest 

 frost and deepest snows. They appear to affect him but little, for he 

 procures his food on the boles of trees; and even if the grass, 

 branches of trees and cottages are entirely mantled with snow, 

 still the boles are uncovered, and thus he has a bountiful table at all 

 seasons, and when many other birds perish. If busied amongst the 

 trees in an orchard, he rarely ascends higher than the boughs, and has 

 adroitness enough to distinguish those which he has once examined, 

 and rarely, if ever, visits them a second time. The tail of this bird is 

 said " to act as a support in climbing a steep surface," and yet I have 

 seen it run along the underside of a lateral branch of a tree with its 

 back downwards, a position in which it would be rather an incum- 

 brance. I have seen an individual also throw itself into an attitude 

 which I should have thought it impossible to accomplish, viz., with 

 its tail towards the branches of a tree, and its head towards the roots. 

 The young leave the nest about the 14th of June. I once found a nest 

 on the 7th of July, fixed immediately behind a piece of projecting bark 

 on a willow-tree ; it was composed of the soft decayed particles of the 

 wood of the tree, lined with a few feathers from the breast of the parent 

 bird, and was a loosely constructed fabric. Several nests of former 

 years filled the crevice, plainly indicating that the same pair had oc- 

 cupied the niche for a very long period. The female showed con- 

 siderable anxiety when the nest was approached, endeavouring by 

 many curious stratagems to entice us from the spot : she brought 

 soft green grubs and caterpillars to feed the young with. The parents 

 keep with the young for some time after leaving the nest, occasionally 

 feeding them with insects. 



J. J. Briggs. 

 Melbourne. 



(To be continued). 



Oology and Ornithology. — Under this head (Zool. 2543), Mr. C. R. Bree. with his 

 usual and well-known knowledge of these and other subjects has made some judicious 

 remarks, to which I beg to add my mite. Would that this delightful study had thou- 

 sands of admirers like that gentlemen ! And then, and not till then, would sparrow 

 societies with other nuisances of a similar nature, flee like a pestilence from the face 



vii 2h 



