256 REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



There is no better description of the working habits of this bird than that 

 given by Dr. Coues: 



"The leading trait of the Brown Creeper is its extraordinary industry — the 

 'incomparable assiduity,' as it has been well styled, with which it works for a 

 living. Like all good workers, the Creeper makes no fuss about it, but just sticks 

 to it. So quietly, yet with such celerity, does it go about its business that it 

 scarcely seems to be at work, but rather to be rambling in an aimless way about 

 the trunks of trees, or at most only caring to see how fast it can scramble to the 

 top. During all this time, however, the bird is on the alert in the search for 

 insects, which it extracts from their lurking-places with such dexterity that 

 its progress is scarcely arrested for a moment; and the number of these minute 

 creatures yearly destroyed is simply incalculable."* 



The Warblers. 



The wood warblers, or, as they are usually called in America, the warblers, 

 simply, are a large family of small birds noted for the brilliancy of the plumage 

 of many species, and for the sweetness of their song. They are peculiarly 

 American in distribution and in most cases are inhabitants of forests. The 

 majority of the species obtain their food from trees and shrubs, but a few are 

 more terrestrial and feed largely upon the ground. There are within the limits 

 of the United States fifteen genera, with about fifty-nine species and eighteen 

 subspecies of this family, and there are few areas of any considerable size that 

 do not have their complement. They are as a family very small, many of them 

 being no bigger than the common house wren, and the largest ones only exceeding 

 the bluebird by a trifle. 



There can be no finer tribute to the usefulness of this family than that of 

 Dr. Elliot Coues, who says: 



"With tireless industry do the warblers befriend the human race; their 

 unconscious zeal plays due part in the nice adjustment of Nature's forces, 

 helping to bring about the balance of vegetable and insect life, without which 

 agriculture would be in vain. They visit the orchard when the apple and 

 pear, the peach, plum and cherry are in bloom, seeming to revel amid the sweet- 

 scented and delicately-tinted blossoms, but never forgetting their good work- 

 They peer into the crevices of the bark, scrutinize each leaf, and explore the very 

 heart of the buds, to detect, drag forth and destroy those tiny creatures, singly 



Birds of the Colorado Valley, p. 147. 



