Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/88

Rh tree to tree, our little gleaner seems to observe a good deal of regularity in his proceedings; for I have almost always observed that he alights on the trunk near the root of the tree, and directs his course, with great nimbleness, upwards to the higher branches, sometimes spirally, often in a direct line, moving rapidly and uniformly along, with his tail bent to the tree, and not in the hopping manner of the Woodpecker, whom he far surpasses in dexterity of climbing, running along the lower side of the horizontal branches with surprising ease. If any person be near when he alights, he is sure to keep the opposite side of the tree, moving round as he moves, so as to prevent him from getting more than a transient glimpse of him. The best method of outwitting him, if you are alone, is, as soon as he alights and disappears behind the trunk, to take your stand behind an adjoining one, and keep a sharp look-out twenty or thirty feet up the body of the tree he is upon, for he generally mounts very regularly to a considerable height, examining the whole way as he advances. In a minute or two, hearing all still, he will make his appearance on one side or other of the tree, and give you an opportunity of observing him."

The Creeper builds early in spring: it selects, for this purpose, some rent or cleft in a tree, where a branch has been broken off, or where a hole has been chiseled by a woodpecker; Sir William Jardine has recorded a case in which a pair built in a stack of peat dried for fuel, and he thinks that holes in walls are sometimes chosen. The nest is composed of dried grass, moss, fibres of slender roots, and feathers, a large quantity of these