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Rh perhaps all true tree-creeping birds may be able to descend in this fashion, should they wish it, though to do so head first may be beyond the power, or rather the habit, of most of them. This, certainly, I have never seen the tree-creeper do, but I should not be at all surprised were I to, some day, and in describing the habits of any bird, "never"—excepting in extreme cases—is, in my opinion, a word that should never be used.

The tit, however, though only an amateur treecreeper, does, as we have seen, descend the trunk head downwards, showing, to this extent at least, a superiority over a much greater master of the art. But here we have the flutter, whether helped out by the use of the feet or not, and we can imagine that, as the bird became more and more a true creeper, and used the wings less and less, he might cease to descend, and only creep upwards. It must, however, be remembered that all the tits are accustomed to hang head downwards from twigs and branches in an uncommon degree, so that a member of the family, developing along these lines, might find it easier to descend the trunk, or make greater efforts to overcome the difficulty of doing so, than a bird whose habits in this respect were less pronounced. Tits perch more generally amongst the higher branches of trees, and have no particular habit of hopping about the ground or creeping over and about the tangle of a tree's projecting roots, which I have often watched wrens doing. Those which I saw tree-creeping did not fly—or at any rate I did not notice that they did—from the tree they were on, so as to alight upon another at a lower elevation,