66 
BROWN CREEPER. 
loose texture, with its filaments not adhering; the white is in 
the centre of every feather, and is skirted with brown; lower 
part of the back, rump, and tail-coverts, rusty brown, the 
last minutely tipt with whitish; the tail is as long as the body, 
of a light drab colour, with the inner webs dusky, and consists 
of twelve quills, each sloping off and tapering to a point in the 
manner of the Woodpeckers, but proportionably weaker in the 
shafts; in many specimens the tail was very slightly marked 
with transverse undulating waves of dusky, scarce observable; 
the two middle feathers the longest, the others on each side 
shortening by one-sixth of an inch to the outer one; the wing 
consists of nineteen feathers, the first an inch long, the fourth 
and fifth the longest, of a deep brownish black, and crossed 
about its middle with a curving band of rufous white, a quarter 
of an inch in breadth, marking ten of the quills; below this the 
quills are exteriorly edged to within a little of their tips with 
rufous white, and tipt with white; the three secondaries next 
the body are dusky white on their inner webs, tipt on the ex- 
terior margin with white, and above that alternately streaked 
laterally with black and dull white; the greater and lesser wing 
coverts are exteriorly tipt with white, the upper part of the 
exterior edges of the former rufous white; the line over the eye 
and whole lower parts are white, a little brownish toward the 
vent, but on the chin and throat pure, silky and glistening; the 
white carves inwards about the middle of the neck; the bill is 
half an inch long,' slender, compressed sidewise, bending down- 
wards, tapering to a point, dusky above and white below; the 
nostrils are oblong, half covered with a convex membrane, and 
without hairs or small feathers; the inside of the mouth is red- 
dish; the tongue tapering gradually to a point, and horny to- 
wards the tip; the eye is dark hazel; the legs and feet a dirty 
clay colour; the toes placed three before and one behind, the 
two outer ones connected with the middle one to the first joint; 
the claws rather paler, large, almost semi-circular, and ex- 
tremely sharp pointed; the hind claw the largest. The figure in 
