CREEPER. 109 



to be dislodged by the larger species, the daw and the stare. We 

 have received it from Gloucestershire by the names of Hickwall and 

 Crank-bird ; have also seen it in Wiltshire, where we took its eggs. 

 CRAW. — A part of the stomach of birds. 



CREAM-COLOURED PLOVER.— A name for the Courser 

 ( Cursorius Isabellinus^) 



CREEPER (Cerihia familiar is i Linn^us.) 



*Certhia familiaris, Linn. Syst. ]. p. 184. 1. — Gmel. Syst. 1. p. 469. sp. I.— Lath. 

 Ind. Orn. 1. p. 280.— Certhia, Raii, Syn. p. 47. A. 5.— Will. p. 100. t. 23— 

 Briss.y. 603. 1.— Ib. 8vo. 2. p. 2.— Le Grimpereau, Buff. Ois. 5. p. 581. t. 21. 

 f. i.—Jb. pi. Enl. 681. f. l.—Temm. Man. d'Orn. 1. p. 410— Gemeine Baum- 

 laufer, Bechst. Naturg. Deut. 2. p. 1085.— Meyer, Tasschenb. Deut. 1. p. 130. 

 Frisch, Vog. t. 39. f. 1, and 2.— Common Creeper, Br. Zool. 1. No. 92. t. 39. 

 — Arct. Zool. 2. No. 174.— Lewin's Br. Birds, 2. t. tt.—Albin, 3 t. 25.—Lath. 

 Syn. 2. p. 701.— Ib. Supp. p. 126.— Mont. Orn. Diet. 1.— Bewick's Br. Birds, 

 l.p. 125. — Pult, Cat. Dorset, p. 5. — Wale. Syn. 1. t. 54. — Shaw's Zool. 8. p. 

 186.— Selby, pi. 39. p. 116.* 



Provincial. — Tree-creeper. Tree-climber. 



This is the only species of the genus in England ; its weight about 

 two drams ; length five inches ; bill half an inch long, slender and 

 curved ; irides hazel. 



The upper part of the head and neck are prettily marked with 

 streaks of black and yellow brown ; above each eye is a stroke of white ; 

 back, rump, and scapulars, inclining to tawny ; quills dusky, mostly 

 tipped and edged with white, or very light brown ; the coverts are 

 varied with dusky brown and yellowish white, the last of which forms 

 a sort of bar across the wing ; the breast and belly are of a silvery 

 white ; the tail consists of twelve sharp-pointed stiff feathers, of a tawny 

 brown. 



Some authors have described this bird as possessing only ten feathers 

 in the tail, which is a mistake. 



This bird is perpetually climbing up the body and limbs of trees in 

 search of insects, its only food. 



It makes a nest in some hole, or behind the bark of some decayed 

 tree, composed of dry grass and the inner bark of wood, loosely put 

 together, and lined with small feathers. The eggs are from six to eight 

 in number, (not twenty as some assert,) weight about eighteen grains ; 

 these are white, minutely speckled with bright rust-colour. During 

 the time of incubation the female is fed by the other sex, whenever she 

 quits her nest in search of food. The note of the Creeper is mono- 

 tonous and weak, several times repeated in a deliberate manner ; but is 

 rarely heard in winter. At this season it is constantly active in search 

 of food, which is chiefly the larvce of insects, found under moss, and 

 in the crevices of the bark ; which it procures in sufficient abundance 

 to subsist it during that season. 



