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ALLEN’S NATURALIST’S LIBRARY. 
bird to the majority of English people, though it is really quite 
a common bird in most of our counties, its single note 
wheest, is somewhat ventriloquial, and the bird cannot always 
~)C detected by the sound. If once the note be recognised 
however, it is not long before the bird can be discovered^ 
as it pursues a course along a tree or branch, and then flies 
down to a lower level, though even then it may escape obser- 
vation, owing to its small size and sober colouring. It runs up 
the trees in the manner of a tiny Woodpecker, but its weak 
bill is not capable of hammering at the bark like the last- 
named bird, or of prising off a large piece, as the Nuthatch 
can do. Its food consists of tiny insects, and spiders consti- 
tute a large portion of its prey, in pursuit of which the bird 
climbs most actively, sometimes running up the trunk to the 
top of the tree or turning aside to follow the course of some 
large branch, examining both the upper and under sides of 
the latter, but always steadily pursuing its course towards 
the end of the bough. In many of its movements it is very 
like a Tit, but it is never seen to turn back or move with its 
head downwards, as a Nuthatch or a Woodpecker will do. 
both male and female are very assiduous in the care of their 
young, but the latter are very noisy, and often lead to the dis- 
covery of the well- concealed nest, by the squeaking that they 
make on the arrival of the parent-birds with food. The 
Creepei has been credited with a song, and some observers 
have recorded the fact in this country. Although we have 
been acquainted with the species from boyhood, we have never 
heard a Tree-Creeper sing in England, though the continental 
birds undoubtedly do sing, and we remember once hearing a 
bird in France, which had a remarkably loud song, like that of 
a Tit. So convinced were we that it was a Tit which was 
singing, that we looked everywhere in the upper branches of 
the tree for the songster, and at last caught sight of it— a 
Creeper— clinging to the trunk only a few yards off from where 
we stood, and singing vigorously a song which we never heard 
our English bird give way to. So there may be something in 
the belief that the Creeper of the continent of Europe is°not 
quite the same as our British bird. 
Nest. — Placed in a hole in a tree or behind the beam of a 
shed, often beliind a crevice in the bark of a tree, but always 
