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BROWN TREE-CREEPER 
Certhia familiaris, Linn . 
PLATE CXY. — Male and Female. 
The only parts of the United States in which I have not met with this 
species during winter are the eastern and northern portions of the Floridas. 
This has appeared the more strange to me, because I have observed several 
of these birds in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, at that 
season, during which it is not rare in any of the States intervening 
between these and Maryland. In the spring and summer months, or what 
is usually called the breeding season, the Brown Creeper may be found 
over the whole country, from the thick woods of the northern parts of 
Pennsylvania to Newfoundland. None were seen by my party or myself 
in Labrador, and as no mention is made of this species in the Fauna 
Boreali-Americana, I suspect that the want of sufficiently wooded localities 
prevents it from proceeding so far north. 
This bird alights on trees of all kinds, in the Carolinas on pines, in Maine 
on maples, in Kentucky on hickories, oaks, or ash-trees ; and as, from the 
time when it is first able to fly, it is one of the most constant roamers of the 
forest, you may meet with it in almost any part of the woods. The taller 
trees, however, are generally preferred by it, perhaps on account of its 
reluctance to fly from one tree to another at a distance. It seldom leaves a 
tree without searching all its crannies, from near the roots to the tops of the 
larger branches, which it does with incomparable assiduity and care, yet by 
movements so rapid that a person unacquainted with it might be inclined to 
think that it runs up the trunk and branches, directly or spirally, above or 
beneath the latter, without any other intention than that of reaching the end 
of its journey as quickly as possible. The reverse of this, however, is the 
case, for, shoot one of them when you please, you will find its stomach 
crammed with insects and larvae, such as occur on the trees. When these 
are not found in abundance, the Creeper appears to discover the scarcity very 
soon, and instead of continuing its search, abandons the tree when not many 
yards from the ground, and launching off shoots downwards in its usual 
manner, and alights a little above the roots of another in the neighbourhood. 
I have observed it when satiated, remain still and silent as if asleep, and, as 
it were, glued to the bark, for nearly an hour at a time. But whether the 
VoL II. 18 
