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Tree-Creeper

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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One of the smallest of British birds, and, regard being had to its requirements, one very generally distributed. It is the Certhia familiaris of ornithology, and is remarkable for the stiffened shafts of its long and pointed tail-feathers, aided by which, and by its comparatively large feet, it climbs the trunks or branches of trees, invariably proceeding upwards or outwards and generally in a spiral direction, as it seeks the small insects that are hidden in the bark and form its chief food. When in the course of its search it nears the end of a branch or the top of a trunk, it flits to another, always alighting lower down than the place it has left, and so continues its work. Inconspicuous in colour - for its upper plumage is mostly of various shades of brown mottled with white, buff and tawny, and beneath it is of a silvery white - the tree-creeper is far more common than the incurious suppose; but, attention once drawn to it, it can be frequently seen and at times heard, for though a shy singer its song is loud and sweet. The nest is neat, generally placed in a chink formed by a half-detached piece of bark, which secures it from observation, and a considerable mass of material is commonly used to stuff up the opening and give a sure foundation for the tiny cup, in which are laid from six to nine eggs of a translucent white, spotted or blotched with rust-colour.

The tree-creeper inhabits almost the whole of Europe as well as Algeria and has been traced across Asia to Japan. It is now recognized as an inhabitant of the greater part of North America, though for a time examples from that part of the world, which differed slightly in the tinge of the plumage, were accounted a distinct species ( C. americana ) and even those from Mexico and Guatemala (C. mexicana ) have lately been referred to the same. It therefore occupies an area not exceeded in extent by that of many passerine birds and is one of the strongest witnesses to the close alliance of the so-called Nearctic and Palaearctic regions.

Allied to the tree-creeper, but without its lengthened and stiff tail-feathers, is the genus Tichodroma, the single member of which is the wall-creeper ( T. muraria ) of the Alps and some other mountainous parts of Europe and Asia. It is occasionally seen in Switzerland, fluttering like a big butterfly against the face of a rock conspicuous from the scarlet-crimson of its wing-coverts and its white spotted primaries. Its bright hue is hardly visible when the bird is at rest, and it then presents a dingy appearance of grey and black. It is a species of wide range, extending from Spain to China; and, though but seldom leaving its cliffs, it has wandered even so far as England. Merrett (Pinax, p. 177) in 1667 included it as a British bird, and the correspondence between Marsham and Gilbert White ( Proc. Norf. and Norw. Nat. Society, ii. 180) proves that an example was shot in Norfolk, on the 30th of October 1792; while another is reported ( Zoologist, 2nd series, p. 4839) to have been killed in Lancashire on the 8th of May 1872.

The passerine family Certhiidae contains a number of genera of birds to which the general name "creeper" is applied; they occur in North America, Europe and Asia, the greater part of Africa, and Australia and New Guinea. (A. N.)