Both i, A temple of this species are adorned by white 
lines above the eye inclosing black stripes, which again in- 
close a yellow spot. The male is made still more charming 
by the intense orange of a central patch on his crown, which 
the female lacks. They are very sociable and love the com- 
pany of their own family as well as that of wrens, nut- — 
hatches, creepers and chickadees. Whenever a lisping, 
invisible conversation is heard in a woodsy country, the right 
kind of whistled notes may bring some of these birds down | : 
from the-treetops to look at the whistler. 
While walking in a pine forest of the Inland Empire a 
friend said, “Oh! see that little speckled 4000 of.a bird 
squeezed into the bark of that tree!” pointing to a California 
creeper, the variety that lives in central Oregon and Wash- 
ington. Her name for the bird was good enough, for he is 
toad-like in coloring and in the way he slowly creeps, always 
upward, along the rough bark which almost conceals him, so 
well do the brown, white, and russet scraps of color match 
in bark and bird; but the long curved bill and sharp pointed 
tail feathers would alone put him out of the toad class. _ 
The Pacific coast district from northern California to 
Alaska has another variety all its own; the tawny creeper | 
which is browner and more suffused with tawny, while the | : 
- wing markings are more buffy. These birds may be found 
only if your eyes are in fine condition, for they love the 
shadowy side of the cone-bearing trees, where they spend 
their lives guarding the northwest timber. While sitting © : 
one summer on a crag in the Cascades, level with the tree-. 
_ tops, a brown mite of a creeper was seen to sail from the tip 
of a fir down to the base of another tree and again begin to 
travel upward in a spiral fashion. It was so tiny and the 
tree so big, yet the life of these giants depends, partly, upon 
the help of just such birds. 
The first knowledge of another group of wood midgets 
will probably come through the sense of hearing, as nut-— 
hatches are oftener heard than seen, although the three 
o6 
