The Common Tree-Creeper is one of 
the best known British birds, and is one of 
the prettiest and most interesting of the 
feathered tribes that are found in this 
country. It is a very small bird, hardly 
so large as a sparrow, and beautifully 
slender in shape. The bill is rather long, 
pointed, and curved, and the tail-feathers 
are stiff and pointed at their extremities. 
The food of the Creeper consists chiefly of 
insects, although the bird will sometimes 
vary its diet by seeds and other vegetable 
substances. The insects on which it feeds 
live principally under the bark of various 
rough-skinned trees, and when it is engaged 
in running after its food, it runs spirally 
up the trunk with wonderful ease and 
celerity, probing every crevice with ready 
adroitness, its whole frame instinct with 
sparkling eagerness, and its little black 
eyes glancing with the exuberance of its 
delight. While running on the side 
of the tree which is nearest to the 
appearance, as its dark-brown back and 
quick tripping movements give it a great resemblance to a mouse, and ever and 
anon, as it comes again into sight from the opposite side of the trunk, its beauti- 
fully white breast gleams suddenly in contrast with the sombre-coloured bark. 
Its eyes are wonderfully keen, as it will discern insects of so minute a form that 
the human eye can hardly perceive them, and it seems to possess some instinctive 
mode of detecting the presence of its insect prey beneath moss or lichens, and 
will perseveringly bore through the substance in which they are hidden, never 
failing to secure them at last. 
The Creeper is a very timid bird, and if it is alarmed at the sight of a human 
being, it will either fly off to a distant tree, or will quietly slip round the trunk of 
the tree on which it is running and keep itself carefully out of sight. It soon, 
however, gains confidence, and, provided that the spectator remains perfectly still, 
the little head and white breast may soon be seen peering anxiously round the 
trunk, and in a few minutes the bird will resume its progress upon the tree and 
run cheerily up the bark, accompanying itself with its faint trilling song. It 
seldom attempts a long flight, seeming to content itself with flitting from tree to 
tree. 
COMMON TREE-CREEPER. 
CertJda familidris . 
spectator, it presents a very curious 
