1 26 BRO WN CREEPER. 



of the head is of a deep brownish black ; the back brown, and 

 both streaked with white, the plumage of the latter being of a 

 loose texture, with its filaments not adhering ; the white is in 

 the centre of every feather, and is skirted with brown ; lower 

 part of the back, rump, and tail-coverts, rusty brown, the last 

 minutely tipt with whitish ; the tail is as long as the body, of 

 a light drab colour, with the inner web dusky, and consists 

 of twelve quills, each sloping off and tapering to a point in 

 the manner of the woodpeckers, but proportionably weaker in 

 the shafts. In many specimens the tail was very slightly 

 marked with transverse undulating waves of dusky, scarce 

 observable ; the two middle feathers the longest, the others on 

 each side shortening, by one-sixth of an inch, to the outer 

 one. The wing consists of nineteen feathers, the first an inch 

 long, the fourth and fifth the longest, of a deep brownish 

 black, and crossed about its middle with a curving band of 

 rufous white, a quarter of an inch in breadth, marking ten of 

 the quills ; below this the quills are exteriorly edged, to within 

 a little of their tips, with rufous white, and tipt with white ; 

 the three secondaries next the body are dusky white on their 

 inner webs, tipt on the exterior margin with white, and, above 

 that, alternately streaked laterally with black and dull white ; 

 the greater and lesser wing-coverts are exteriorly tipt with 

 white ; the upper part of the exterior edges of the former, 

 rufous white ; the line over the eye, and whole lower parts, 

 are white, a little brownish towards the vent, but, on the chin 

 and throat, pure, silky, and glistening ; the white curves 

 inwards about the middle of the neck. The bill is half an inch 

 long, slender, compressed sidewise, bending downwards, taper- 

 ing to a point, dusky above, and white below ; the nostrils arc 

 oblong, half covered with a convex membrane, and without 

 hairs or small feathers ; the inside of the mouth is reddish; the 

 tongue tapering gradually to a point, and horny towards the 

 tip ; the eye is dark hazel ; the legs and feet, a dirty clay 

 colour ; the toes, placed three before and one behind, the two 

 outer ones connected with the middle one to the first joint ; 



