BROWN CREEPER. 



123 



hopping manner of the Woodpecker, whom he far sm^passes in dex- 

 terity of climbing, running along the lower side of the horizontal 

 branches with surprising ease. If any person be near when he 

 alights he is sure to keep the opposite side of the tree, moving 

 round as he moves, so as to prevent him from getting more than a 

 transient glimpse of him. The best method of outwitting him, if 

 you are alone, is, as soon as he alights and disappears behind the 

 trunk, take your stand behind an adjoining one, and keep a sharp 

 look out twenty or thirty feet up the body of the tree he is upon, 

 for he generally mounts very regularly to a considerable height, 

 examining the whole Avay as he advances. In a minute or two, 

 hearing all still, he will make his appearance on one side or other 

 of the tree, and give you an opportunity of observing him. 



These birds are distributed over the whole United States ; but 

 are most numerous in the western and northern states, and parti- 

 cularly so in the depth of the forests, and in tracts of large tim- 

 bered woods, where they usually breed; visiting the thicker settled 

 parts of the country in Fall and winter. They are more abundant 

 in the flat woods of the lower district of New Jersey than in Penn- 

 sylvania; and are frequently found among the pines. Tho their 

 customary food appears to consist of those insects of the coleopte- 

 rous class, yet I have frequently found in their stomachs the seeds 

 of the pine tree, and fragments of a species of fungus that vegetates 

 in old wood, with generally a large proportion of gravel. There 

 seems to be scarcely any difference between the colors and mark- 

 ings of the male and female. In the month of March I opened 

 eleven of these birds, among whom were several females, as ap- 

 peared by the clusters of minute eggs with which their ovaries were 

 filled, and also several well marked males, and on the most careful 

 comparison of their plumage I could find little or no difference; 

 the colors indeed were rather more vivid and intense in some than 

 in others ; but sometimes this superiority belonged to a male, some- 

 times to a female, and appeared to be entirely owing to difference 



