CREEPER. 
109 
to be dislodg-ed by the larger species, the daw and the stare. We 
have received it from Gloucestershire by the names of Plickwall 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 IsahelUnus.^ 
CREEPER (^CertJiia familiar is, Linn^us.) 
*Certhia familiar’s, Linn. Syst. 1. p. 184. 1. — Gmel. Syst. 1. p. 469. sp, 1. — Lath. 
Ind. Orn, 1. p.280. — Certhia, Raii, Syn. p. 47. A. 5. — Will. p. 100. t. 23. — 
Briss.-p. 603. 1. — Ib. 8vo. 2. p. 2. — Le Grimpereau, Buff. Ois. 5. p. 581. t. 21. 
f. 1. — Ib. pi. Enl. 681. f. 1. — >Temm. Man. d’Orn. 1. p. 410 — Gemeine Baum- 
laufer, Bechst. Naturg. Dent. 2. p. 10S5. --Meyer, Tassclienb. Dent. 1. p. 130. 
Frisch, Vdg. 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. 55. — 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. — TEaic. 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. 
