364 , 
COMMON CREEPER. 
parative list, while the opinions of Richardson 
and Audubon are opposed to the separation. 
Upper parts of a British specimen yellowish 
brown, intermixed with blackish brown, and yel- 
lowish, and greyish white, the mixture caused 
by the centre of the feathers being paler; the 
same colours surround the eye, and pervade the 
auriculars ; the rump and upper tail coverts are 
gallstone yellow ; the quills are hair brown, and 
have a diagonal band of yellowish white crossing 
them about the middle, except the three first, 
succeeded on each side by a deeper tint, and 
forming almost three bars ; nearer the tips there 
is another pale band on the outer webs ; the tail 
also is hair brown, the shafts gallstone yellow ; 
the under parts are white, tinted on the flanks 
with yellowish brown. In American specimens, 
the most prominent mark is the comparative 
shortness of the tarsi, less size of the feet, and 
shortness of all the claws, particularly that of the 
hallux. The other varieties of plumage are diffi- 
cult to distinguish, though, to a certain extent, 
present ; and we have only more and more to 
regret that the Prince of Musignano has not, in 
his comparative list, given us the distinctions 
which, he considers, will separate such closely 
allied birds.* 
The next sub-family, Sittince, contains also 
only one British representative from the genus 
Sittu, or Nuthatch, a small but interesting group 
* This constitutes the C. brachydaclyla of Brehm. 
