126 
BROWN CREEPER. 
minutely tipt with whitish ; the tail is as long as the body, of 
a light drab colour, with the inner web 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 exterior 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 towards the vent, but, on the chin 
and throat, pure, silky, and glistening ; the white curves 
inwards about the middle of the neck ; the bill is half an inch 
long, slender, compressed sidewise, bending downwards, taper- 
ing 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 reddish ; the 
tongue tapering gradually to a point, and horny towards 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 semicircular, and extremely 
sharp pointed; the hind claw the largest. The figure in the 
plate represents a male of the usual size in its exact propor- 
tions, and, but for the satisfaction of foreigners, might have 
rendered the whole of this prolix description unnecessary. 
