122 BRO WN CREEPER. 



covering the ears are more dusky red than the other parts of 

 the head. This is the male when arrived at its full colours. 

 The female is nearly of the same size, of a brown olive or 

 flaxen colour, streaked with dusky black ; the head, seamed 

 with lateral lines of whitish ; above and below the hind part 

 of the ear-feathers are two streaks of white ; the breast is 

 whitish, streaked with a light flax colour ; tail and wings, as 

 in the male, only both edged with dull brown, instead of red; 

 belly and vent, white. This is also the colour of the young 

 during the first, and to at least the end of the second season, 

 when the males begin to become lighter yellowish, which 

 gradually brightens to crimson ; the female always retains 

 nearly the same appearance. The young male bird of the first 

 year may be distinguished from the female by the tail of the 

 former being edged with olive green, that of the latter with 

 brown. A male of one of these birds, which I kept for some 

 time, changed in the month of October from red to greenish 

 yellow, but died before it recovered its former colour. 



BROWN CREEPER. {Certhia familiaris.) 



PLATE VIII.— Fig. 1. 



Little Brown Variegated Creeper, Bartram, 289. — Peale's Museum, No. 2434. 



CERTHIA FAMILIARIS.— Lwxjevs. 



Certhia familiaris, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. 469. — Bonap. Synop. p. 95. — The Creeper, 

 Bewick, Brit. Birds, i. p. 148. — Le Grimpereau, Temm. Man. i. p. 410.— 

 Common Creeper, Selby III. plate 39, vol. L p. 116. 



This bird agrees so nearly with the common European creeper 

 {Certhia familiaris), that I have little doubt of their being 

 one and the same species* I have examined, at different 



* I have compared numerous British specimens with skins from North 

 America, and can find no differences that will entitle a separation of 

 species. In this country they are very abundant, more so apparently in 

 winter, so that we either receive a great accession from the more nor- 

 thern parts of Europe, or the colder season and diminished supply of 



