at the top. What next ? will it creep down again ? No ; there it comes witli headlong flight, glancing like 
an arrow, curves as it comes near the ground, alights at the very root of the next tree, and commences its 
ascent. You may watch it for an hour and you will find it as fresh, as lively, and as keen as ever. Should 
it happen to observe you, it will run up the back of tbe tree, appearing now and then on the sides, until it 
is perhaps halfway up, when it will search all parts alike, being free from the apprehension of injury. But 
now, hearing its friends the Tits and Reguli at a distance, it looks abroad for a moment from the top of the 
tree, and, uttering a few cries, sweeps away in a curving, somewhat undulatory course. Such is the ordinary 
action of the Creeper ; and I have seldom observed one a single minute at rest. Yet, like other birds, it has 
its periods of cessation from labour ; and in the breeding-season it is amusing to observe the gambols of a 
pair chasing each other along the trunk of a tree, perching for a moment on the branches, and then 
scudding away, all the while emitting their shrill and feeble notes. These birds are easily shot ; for they 
seem to pay little attention to a person approaching them, insomuch that I have been within six feet of one, 
which yet did not fly off, but merely crept round to the other side of the tree. I suppose that it is destitute 
of song, never having heard it emit modulated sounds. Its flight is generally short and rapid, from the top of 
one tree to the base of another ; hut it may sometimes be seen traversing a space of several hundred yards, 
with a quick and undulating motion, and at a considerable elevation. 
“It is a permanent resident, occurs in all parts of the country, but is nowhere numerous, and never 
appears in flocks. In winter it shifts about from place to place, generally accompanying a flock of Tits or 
Kinglets, but sometimes seeking for its food solitarily, seldom entering small gardens, but often appearing in 
woods near houses, hedgerows, or even on large single trees. It pairs in April, and about the beginning of 
May commences the construction of its nest, which it places in a hole in a tree or rock, or among the 
roots in a mossy bank. It is composed of withered stalks and blades of grasses, moss, fibrous roots, and 
other materials, and is lined with feathers. The eggs, from five to seven or eight in number, are seven and 
a half twelfths of an inch in length, five twelfths in breadth, of a regular ovate form, glossy white, sprinkled 
with dots and small patches of brownish red, often disposed in a broad belt at the larger end, and leaving 
the narrower half unspotted. Montague states that ‘ during the time of incubation, the female is fed by the 
other sex, whenever she quits her nest in search of food.’ The young are abroad by the middle of June, 
and I have reason to think that a second brood is frequently reared.” 
Probably there is no bird which selects a greater variety of sites for its nest, the side of a gate-post, the 
space beneath the tiles of a roofed shed, an interstice in the plaster of a wall, among the timbers in a wood- 
yard, or an old stack of hop-poles in a field, being all lesorted to. I have many notes among my MSS. 
describing the different nests that have come under my notice ; these are far too numerous for them all to 
he given here ; but I select two or three of the more interesting examples. 
A nest taken from under some tiles at Maidenhead was a ragged conglomeration of dried grasses, moss, 
leaves, and sawdusty cobwebs ; the interior much neater, and lined with fine hair and grasses. 
Another, from a fir-stack at Churt, near Farnham, presented a singularly beautiful yet strange appearance: 
it looked as if the bird had commenced by constructing a bristling platform of rough twigs with their 
ends all pointing outwards in different directions, after the manner of a “ chevaux de frise the true nest, 
which was composed of coarse grasses, gradually becoming finer toward the interior, and lined with a few 
soft feathers and moss, was neatly placed in a slight depression in the midst of this platform, from which 
it was so distinct that one might fancy the bird had constructed the nest separately, and then placed it 
upon the platform. In it were five beautiful eggs, which were like, but very much smaller than those of the 
Willow Wren ; their colour was pinky white, dotted all over with clear orange-red spots, but particularly 
at the larger end, where they formed a broken zone. 
Mr. Smither, of Churt, informs me that if the nest he disturbed, the bird will remove the eggs ; he has 
noticed that this has been done upon five different occasions, when he had taken some of the eggs from 
situations where he knew no one but himself could have been. 
In justification of the epithet “ mouse-like ” I have applied to this species, I may mention that Professor 
Owen informs me that, while walking in his beautiful garden in Richmond Park, his son exclaimed “ Why ! 
a mouse has just run between the hark and stem of that Acacia.” “Let’s see,” said the Professor, “ what 
it means ;” when out poj)ped the little Creeper, and solved the mystery ; and on examination its nest was 
found snugly ensconced in the crevice. 
The sexes differ but little in size or in colour ; but I have observed that very old birds when fresh moulted 
are more silvery in all their whiter parts than younger ones. 
The Plate, which will give a better notion of the colouring of this bird than the most lengthy description, 
represents the two sexes and a brood of young, of the natural size. The Lichen is the Usnea florida of 
Linneeus. 
