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BROWN CREEPER. 

 CERTHIA FAMILIARIS. 

 [Plate VIII.— Fig. 1.] 



Little Brown variegated Creeper, Bartram, 289. — Pe ale's Museum, No. 2434. 



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 times, 

 great numbers of these birds, and have endeavoured to make a 

 correct drawing of the male, that Europeans and others may judge 

 for themselves ; and the excellent artist to whom the plate was en- 

 trusted has done his part so well in the engraving, as to render the 

 figure a perfect resemblance of the living original. 



The Brown Creeper is an extremely active and restless little 

 bird. In winter it associates with the small spotted Woodpecker, 

 Nuthatch, Titmouse, &c. and often follows in their rear, gleaning 

 up those insects which their more powerful bills had alarmed and 

 exposed; for its own slender incurvated bill seems unequal to the 

 task of penetrating into even the decayed^vvood; tho it may into 

 holes and behind scales of the bark. Of the Titmouse there are ge- 

 nerally present the individuals of a whole family, and seldom more 

 than one or two of the others. As the party advances thro the 

 woods, from tree to tree, our little gleaner seems to observe a good 

 deal of regularity in his proceedings ; for I have almost always ob- 

 served that he alights on the body near the root of the tree, and 

 directs his course with great nimbleness upwards to the higher 

 branches, sometimes spirally, often in a direct line, moving rapidly 

 and uniformly along with his tail bent to the tree, and not in the 



