160 WALL CREEPER. 



a point d'appui like its congeneric species, but goes 

 with a low spring from one rough spot to another, 

 until it gets to the top, when it flies down again, and 

 so on for a whole day. It is not seen on the ground. 



Naumann tells us the Wall Creeper is unsociable and 

 quarrelsome with its kind, and hence it is always soli- 

 tary. Even the young separate early. The call-note is 

 said to be similar to the Bullfinch, and it has also a 

 shorter note when running up the walls, in which the 

 short strophe di, didi, zaa, is often kept up with very 

 little variation. Both male and female sing, and during 

 the performance they raise their bodies, and move their 

 wings and tail, or flutter them upon the rocks. 



It feeds on insects and their larvte and eggs, spiders, 

 ants, etc., all of which it pokes out of the crevices 

 with its long curved beak. 



It builds in high places which are very difficult to 

 get at — in chinks of barren rocks, or in the holes of 

 walls and old buildings or towers. Little indeed was 

 known about the nidification of this bird until about 

 ten years ago, when Nager-Donaziane, of Unsen-Thale, 

 discovered the nest and eggs, and supplied his friends 

 with specimens, of which a true description was first 

 given by the Baron V. Konig, in "Cabanis' Journal 

 fur Ornithologie," for 1855. The nest is built of an 

 underlayer of soft dry stalks, mixed with moss, hair, 

 soft feathers, and wool, and is lined with animals' hair. 

 It lays from three to five eggs in June, which are 

 either pear-shaped or more generally oval. The shell 

 is slightly shining white, with small red or flesh-coloured 

 spots and dots, which are most numerous at the larger 

 end. They are about the same size as those of the 

 Wryneck. 



The male in breeding plumage has the top of the 



