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Sierra Club Bulletin. 



from contemplating them as they flash in sparkHng Uvery 

 of iridescent green and coppery red and hlac to the 

 awful cliffs toppling above their fairy bowers! 



And then there are the little brown creepers — frail, 

 slight, timid creatures with high lisping call notes — that 

 cling to the pine trunks, busily hopping in spirals up the 

 trees and prying daintily with their long slender beaks 

 into the bark crevices for their insect food. Their backs 

 of streaked brown and gray harmonize so closely with 

 the tree-trunks that it requires a sharp eye to detect the 

 tiny fellows as they continue their methodical and un- 

 ceasing labor of food hunting. More noisy in their 

 habits are those other creeping gnomes — the red-bellied 

 nuthatches. Their characteristic iterated call-note once 

 learned is an unmistakable evidence of their whereabouts. 

 Their black caps, gray-blue backs and reddish-brown 

 breasts, taken in connection with their diminutive size 

 and their habit of clinging to the trunks of trees instead 

 of alighting on branches, will serve to make them known 

 even to the novice in bird-craft. 



With these amateur bark-pryers we may contrast the 

 masters of this mode of life — the woodpeckers. Struc- 

 turally widely sundered, the similarity of their habits 

 brings these two groups together in mind, but the wood- 

 peckers, with their toes paired, two forward and two 

 backward, their stiff tail props, their slender wiry necks, 

 and their stout beaks, are set apart as the bark dwellers 

 par excellence. The California woodpecker, one of the 

 most showy members of his tribe, has a black back, 

 burnished with bluish luster and a white rump-patch. 

 The top of the head is crimson with a white border on 

 the forehead ; the chin and breast are black, with a white 

 or sulphur-yellow throat area between, and the white 

 belly is streaked on the sides with black. The harsh 

 rattling call-note of this bird — ka-rak-a, ka-rak-a, ka- 

 rak-a, is unlike any other bird-sound in the Sierra, and 

 thus affords a ready means of identification. Both the 

 California and Harris's woodpecker beat a resonant tattoo 



