THE CRIMSON-WINGED CREEPERS. 
123 
concealed and hidden. The nest is generally somewhat rough, 
composed of moss and small roots, with a good many chips 
of dead wood. 
Mr. Seebohm, however, calls it a handsome little structure, 
and says that “ there is a rustic beauty about a Creeper’s nest 
which few others possess. The crevice behind the bark which 
the bird usually selects is often too large for the nest itself ; 
and the superfluous space is filled up with a quantity of fine 
twigs, chiefly of beech and birch. Round the edge of the nest 
is artfully woven a series of the finest twigs ; and the lining is 
made of roots, grass, moss, and sometimes feathers. But the 
chief characteristic of the Creeper’s nest is the lining of fine 
strips of inside bark which is almost invariably there.” 
Eggs. — Four to six in number. Ground-colour either pure 
white or reddish-white, the markings varying with the ground- 
colour of the two different styles of egg. Where the egg is 
creamy- or reddish-white, the spots are decidedly rufous in 
character, with a tendency to cluster round the large end. In 
the whiter eggs, the spots vary from reddish-brown to blackish, 
with underlying spots of grey, not easily distinguishable from 
the overlying spots. Axis, 0-65 inch ; diam., 0-5. 
THE CRIMSON-WINGED CREEPERS. GENUS TICIIODROMA. 
Tichodroma, 111 . Prod., p. 211 (1S10). 
Type, T. muraria (Linn.). 
The present genus holds an intermediate position between 
the Tree-Creepers and the Nuthatches. Like the former, it has 
a curved and slender bill, and a powerful head ; but like the 
Nuthatches it has a soft tail, a grey upper plumage, and it shares 
with the Nuthatches the character of the white spots on the 
outer tail-feathers. 
There is only one species of the genus Tichodroma , the 
range of which is given below. 
THE WALL-CREEPER. TICHODROMA MURARIA. 
Certhia muraria, Linn., S. N., i., p. 184 (1766). 
Tichodroma muraria , Dresser, B. Eur., iii., p. 207, pi. 123 
(1871); B. O. U. List Br. B., p. 46 (1883); Gadow, Cat. 
