COMMON" CREEPER. 187 



seven and a half : the bill is hooked, like a sickle : 

 the irides hazel : the legs slender : the toes and 

 claws very long, to enable it to creep up and down 

 the bodies of trees in search of insects, which are 

 its food. It breeds in hollow trees, and lays some- 

 times twenty eggs. The head and upper part of 

 the neck are brown, streaked with black*: the 

 rump is tawny : the coverts of the wings are varie- 

 gated with brown and black : the quilUfeathers 

 dusky, tipped with white, and barred with tawny 

 marks : the breast and belly are of a silvery white: 

 the tail is very long, and consists of twelve stiff 

 feathers, notwithstanding Mr. Willughby and other 

 ornithologists give it but ten : they are of a tawny 

 hue, and the interior ends slope off to a point.*' 



In the particular of the eggs Mr. Pennant seems 

 to have somewhat too implicitly followed the ac- 

 counts of Belon and the rest of the older ornitho- 

 logists ; and, as the Count de Buffon observes, it 

 is not improbable that the Creeper has sometimes 

 been confounded with those prolific birds the Tit- 

 mice. The general number of eggs laid by the 

 Creeper is five or seven : they are ash-coloured, 

 with deeper spots and streaks. 



The Creeper is generally seen engaged in climb- 

 ing up and down the bodies and limbs of trees in 

 quest of insects. It makes its nest either in a hole, 

 or behind the bark of some decayed tree, coni- 

 posing it, according to the observations of Colonel 



* Or ratlier, according to Willughby, fox-coloured with white 

 streaks. ^ 



