BY THE WAYSIDE. 
65 
SCHOOL BRANCH DEPARTMENT. 
Every Wisconsin School Branch is required to subscribe for at least one copy of BY THE WAYSIDE 
Letters for this department should be written on only 
one side of the page, should give the name, age and ad¬ 
dress of the writer, and should be mailed by the first of 
the month, Illinois Children sending to Mrs. Wm. M. 
Scudder, 165 Buena Ave., Chicago, Ill., and Wisconsin 
children to Mrs. Peckham, 646 Marshall St., Milwaukee, 
VVis. An honor badge will be awarded for each state 
every month, preference being given to letters about the 
bird for the month (which is always on this page), and 
to original observations. Any child who wins the honor 
badge twice will receive a bird book as a prize. 
The wren button, which is the badge of the Audubon 
Society, costs one cent, and may be bought from Mrs. 
Scudder or Mrs. Peckham. 
Any Wisconsin School Branch may, without expense, 
have the use of the Gordon and Merrill Libraries of bird 
books, by applying to Miss Bossert, Librarian, 719 Frank¬ 
lin St., Milwaukee. 
A set of colored bird slides with a type-written lecture 
may be rented from Prof. W. S. Marshall, 114 E. Gorham 
St., Madison, Wis. 
Illinois Schools may use, without expense, a library 
or a lecture with lantern slides, by applying to Mrs. 
Ituthven Deane, 504 N. State St., Chicago. 
Brown Creeper. 
Bill curved; upper parts brownish, streiked with 
white; rump pale reddish brown; one light wing bar; 
under parts white; tail feathers stiff and sharply pointed. 
Length, about 5 Vs inches. 
This is one of the unique little birds whose 
ways are all his own. To be sure, the Nut¬ 
hatches and Black and White Creeper affect 
tree trunks, but not so exclusively that their 
dress and tools declare their trade. The Brown 
Creeper is bark color to begin with, and 
then his bill is curved to better reach the in¬ 
sects and eggs under the bark of tree trunks; 
his hind toe-nail is elongated to better bear 
his weight; while his tail is so sharply pointed 
for bracing at his work that it places him 
with the Woodpeckers and the other sharp¬ 
tailed birds. 
The Creeper's way of hunting differs essen¬ 
tially from that of the other tree trunk birds. 
The Woodpeckers hop up a trunk and may 
back down if they wish to retrace their steps; 
the Nuthatch goes head down; the Black and 
White Creeper zigzags up a trunk, hopping 
gaily along, branching off as his fancy dic¬ 
tates; but the Brown Creeper rocks sedately 
up the bole, getting its insect and larvae din¬ 
ner in formal fashion as it goes. It often cir¬ 
cles around the trunk, in corkscrew style, till 
it gets near the top, when it shoots obliquely 
diown to the foot of the next tree and begins 
to rock up again. 
It is such an interesting bird that we would 
be glad to have more than a mere passing 
woodland acquaintance with it, and Doctor 
Mearns assures us that by hanging a bit of 
pork from the balcony we can attract it to 
lour houses. 
The nest of the Creeper is one to be searched 
for diligently, it is such an oddity in bird 
architecture. It is tucked in under a, bit of 
loose bark on the side, of a tree trunk where 
it has a ready-made Mansard roof to keep off 
the rain, and a cosy home of it in all respects. 
Good notes on the history of one of these 
nests would be valuable, as the bird has been 
studied comparatively little. 
The siong of the Creeper is described by 
Mr. Brewster as exquisitely pure and tender, 
alternately rising and falling, and “dying 
away in an indescribably plaintive cadence, 
like the soft sigh of the wind among the pine 
boughs .”—From Mrs. Bailey’s Birds of Vil¬ 
lage and Field. 
Letters about the Brown Creeper should be 
mailed by February 1. 
Prizes and Badges. 
Erwin Radloff, 618 23rd street, Milwaukee, 
wins the December honor badge for Wiscon¬ 
sin. and Fred Mans of Upper Alton for Illinois. 
The Bird-Lore prize, for the best study of 
birds for the month, is not awarded, since no 
papers have been received about birds in No¬ 
vember. 
Secretary’s Letter. 
Dear Children: We have a good law for 
bird protection here in Wisconsin, but it is a 
difficult matter to enforce it. For the most 
part, the game wardens are friendly and will¬ 
ing to do their part, hut the territory is too 
wide for them to cover. Mrs. Mabel Osgood 
Wright, in considering this matter, as it con¬ 
cerns the whole country, thinks that the trou¬ 
ble lies largely in the fact that many people 
are ignorant of the law. Now, here is a way 
in which the children of the Society can be of 
practical use. Let everyone who reads this 
letter or who hears it read, make a point of 
