creeper

“ They found themselves descending rugged stair after stair, encumbered with dead branches of creeper which cracked and snapped under their feet at every moment, till they were about five feet below the level of the terrace, with some dozens of greeny-white darkness-grown creeper strands swinging to and fro from above, and just in front of them they could dimly see, standing with uplifted menacing arm, what seemed to be a hideously grotesque half-human half-animal figure, apparently blocking the way. ”

“ One is apt to think of the Creeper as a silent and very busy bird, who never finds leisure to rest and preen his feathers, or to relieve his mind with song. When he does sing he takes us a little aback. One spring morning, as I was strolling in the Broad Walk, a Creeper flew past me and fixed himself on the thick branch of an elm—not on a trunk, as usual—and uttered a loud and vigorous song, something after the manner of the Wren’s. ”

“ They never seem in the least afraid of us, but raise their softly rounded heads and look at us with a most delightful confidence.
The brown creeper is like a bit of the trunk in his brown tints, mottled as if in mimicry of the play of light and shadow on the bark. He is as truly a tree-creature as ever Greek fable devised, and can so flatten himself, when alarmed, against a tree that no inch of his light breast is visible, and it is difficult, indeed, to recognize him as a separate being. ”

“ He went to the Creeper, and said, "Dear Creeper, do please choke the Elephant, that he may drink up the Ocean, and the Ocean may put out the Fire, and the Fire may burn the Stick, and the Stick may beat the Snake, and the Snake may bite the Queen, and the Queen may divorce the King, and the King may tell the Carpenter to pare down my ribs, and let me get into my hole." ”

“ Five times it made the attempt to capture the creeper, and every time the little bird eluded its enemy by a quick retreat. It was a veritable game of hide and seek, amusing and interesting for the spectator, but to the birds a game of life and death. Life won. I ever have believed thoroughly that the creeper thought out the problem of escape for itself. The last time the shrike went back to its perch the creeper did not show round the trunk again, but instead flew away, keeping the hole of the tree between itself and its foe. ”

“ On gathering it to examine the thick-set florets, if was found that a slender runner or creeper had been torn up with it. Like a thread the creeper had wound itself round and round the furze, buried in and hidden by the prickles, and it was this creeper that bore the white or cream-florets. ”

“ I had to train myself to it a little, however, and to clip my wings short at first, or they would have carried me up into poetry in spite of myself. So I determined to begin by the opposite extreme, and abandoning the higher regions of the craft, I came plump down to the lowest, and turned creeper.
"Creeper," interrupted I, "and pray what is that?" Oh, sir! I see you are ignorant of the language of the craft; a creeper is one who furnishes the newspapers with paragraphs at so much a line, one that goes about in quest of misfortunes ”

“ Cut everything like a creeper across them and some day you will find you have cut a snare." "A what?" asked Rag, as he scratched his right ear with his left hind foot.
"A snare is something that looks like a creeper, but it doesn't grow and it's worse than all the hawks in the world," said Molly, glancing at the now far-away red-tail, "for there it hides night and day in the runway till the chance to catch you comes." ”

“ As a rule, however, the Creeper is solitary, and, in this 32respect, offers a marked contrast to its companions and relatives, the sociable Chickadees and Kinglets.
The eyes of a Creeper are so near the bark which it is inspecting, that it is not strange that it finds food where we should look in vain. ”

“ A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound
No other tree could live. But gallantly
The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung
In crimson clusters all the boughs among,
Whereon all day are gathered bird and bee ”

“ The creeper is not easy to find. He is so wonderfully protected by his dull brown feathers that he looks more like an animated lichen than a bird. His nest is a cleverly camouflaged affair, tucked behind loose bark and often containing eight whitish eggs about the size of beans. ”

“ Cato, the Creeper, stood ready to fix upon any trail, trace or mark; and the hearts of the whole band beat as one.
Every man was armed to the teeth, and what was better, was buoyed by the sense of being in the right—a weapon far more potent than the steadiest rifle, the deadliest pistol, or keenest knife ever made. ”

“ The contrast of such a method with that of other small birds—warblers and wagtails, and swallows and finches—is very great. Feeding-time with them is song-time and play-time; their blithe voices and lively antics and motions show how happy they are in their lives. The creeper is a rather silent bird, but he utters in the pairing season a shrill, high-pitched call-note, and the same sound is emitted when the nest is in danger. ”

“ But the creepers I have spoken of make the woods still more curious, and unlike anything at home. First, a creeper drops down from a branch 150 feet high, and then another falls close to it, and the wind blows and twists them together; others grow round it till it takes root, and form a lofty pillar which supports the immense mass of twisting and twining stems above. As we rode along, I saw from many a lofty branch the net-like nests of the corn-bird hanging at the end of long creepers. Those mischievous rascals, the monkeys, are fond of eggs, and will take great pains to get them ”

“ Then he takes a knife and calls out the woman's name, and when she answers he cuts through the creeper with a knife, saying, "I cut through to-day thy bonds and thy child's bonds." After that he chops up the creeper small, puts the bits in a vessel of water, and bathes the woman with the water. Here the cutting of the creeper with which the woman's hands and feet are bound is a simple piece of homoeopathic or imitative magic: by releasing her limbs from their bonds the magician imagines that he simultaneously releases the child in her womb from the trammels which impede its birth. ”

“ When the tea-time came next day she went out with the baby and walked up and down the surging London streets looking in the windows and crushing back tears. What the creeper did with his guests she never knew, for she did not return till long after dusk, when she was too weary to wander any more, and she found no one there but himself and a dark stranger, who spoke little and with an Italian accent, but who measured her with serious, intense eyes. He listened to the creeper, but he looked at her ”

“ The Virginian creeper has another mode of attaching itself to a wall or other solid support, by the formation, at the extremities of the branches of the tendril, of little disks or cushions, very similar to the disks on the foot of the house-fly, by which it is enabled to attach itself to our windows, and to walk along the ceiling. ”

“ The creeper is a creeper on trees all the year round, and extracts all his sustenance from the bark. His procedure is always the same: no sooner has he got to the higher and smoother part of the hole up which he has travelled than he detaches himself from it, and drops slantingly through the air to the roots of another tree, to begin as before. ”

“ Now it creeps on the under side of a projecting limb, then again on the top, and although it will explore an entire tree, still it but rarely uses its wings to convey it from one part to another. You will also find that it, like the Woodpecker, endeavors to be on the opposite side to you, and carry on its explorations unseen." Curiosity, however, often seems to get the better of the Creeper, and you will see its light colored breast and sharp little head peep trustfully at you and again vanish from sight. ”

“ It took brains and a genius for disguise to make a man a successful creeper and spyer. You couldn't simply say to yourself, 'I will creep.' If you attempted to do it in your own person, you would be detected instantly. You had to be an adept at masking your personality. You had to be one man at Bristol and another quite different man at Hull—especially if, like Henry, you were of a gregarious disposition, and liked the society of actors. ”

“ The Creeper is admirably adapted to its ways of life. Its bill is formed for obtaining its insect food, and its tail supports it while climbing.
The Brown Creeper nests in early summer, when insect life is most abundant, and, like the Woodpecker, prefers a hole for the purpose. This it lines with dry grass, moss and feathers, and makes a very warm and comfortable home. The eggs are from five to eight, white, spotted and speckled with red. The Creeper is not migratory, and we see it in the woods throughout the year. It is hardy and lives sumptuously the winter through. ”

“ Like the Brown Creeper, this bird has a faint lisping call which usually is given in a series of from one to 3 notes, not the single note of the creeper.
They often feed in low bushes or shrubs, sometimes on the ground and seem to have little fear of man and will permit a close inspection. When feeding high in the trees, their small size gives you a clue to their identity. ”

“ Pressed tightly against the smooth rock, feeling for every crevice, every slightest irregularity of surface, making use of creeping tendril or dead branch, daring death along every inch of the way, these two creepers at last attained the opening to the little gulley, and sank down, faint and trembling, their hands bleeding, their clothing sadly torn by the sharp ledges across which they had pulled their bodies by the sheer strength of extended arms. ”

“ Then, there is the little brown creeper which never perches and is forever creeping, creeping, upward, upward—save, of course, when it takes to wing—and yet its toes are arranged in the normal percher style, the hind digit having an especially long, curved claw. It is a mistake to suppose that all the problems of the bird world have been solved. ”

“ The little bird known as the brown creeper belongs to a different avicular family entirely, but in one respect he is like the black-and-white warbler—that is, he scales the trunks and branches of the trees. There, however, the resemblance ceases, for the creeper rarely goes head downward, evidently thinking that the proper position for a bird's head is pointing toward the sky, not toward the ground. Besides, he seldom, if ever, sits crosswise on a perch ”

“ The Creeper was reticent.
You sartainly are one dressin' up fool, Creeper, one of the King's companions inserted.
Heavy lover, too, another added.
The King offered his accolade: Nobody like duh Creeper fo' close an' women, nobody a-tall.
Anatole exposed his pearls. Bottle et, he suggested.
Come in an' see me, Pettijohn invited. Mah Winter Palace is open winter an' summer.
Completely at his ease again, the Creeper strutted on, swinging his cane, expanding his chest, and humming to himself:
Mah man's got teeth lak a lighthouse on duh sea,
An' when he smiles he throws dem lights on me. ”

“ We saw Coal-Tits feeding young in three different places, but the bird was not common, and we did not meet with either the Marsh or the Long-tailed Tit. The Creeper has the reputation of being a shy singer, and when the trees are in leaf is easily overlooked; but, from the number of times on which we heard the song in many different localities, the bird must be very plentiful. The Tree-Pipit, like the Redstart, was unaccountably rare; we saw a pair in a wood at Holland Arms, heard three or four in song between Llanfair and Menai, and one at Llangoed, but none elsewhere. ”

“ Certhia familiaris montana Ridgway.—Miller (1955a:169) reported this subspecies of the Brown Creeper, which he assumed to be a winter visitant or a migrant, in the Sierra del Carmen. He (loc. cit.) remarked also that the higher conifers would seem to constitute favorable habitat for nesting by the Brown Creeper, but did not find any evidence of a breeding population of creepers in the Sierra del Carmen. Miller, Friedmann, Griscom, and Moore (1957:143) reported C. f. montana from San Lázaro Mountain on November 9.
**Certhia familiaris albescens Berlepsch.—Specimens examined: total 3: sex ? ”

“ A more appropriate name has seldom been given to a bird than that by which the present species is designated. Notwithstanding the approximation of the bill in form to that of the Sylviæ, I am decidedly inclined to place this species among the Creepers or Certhiæ. To convince you of the propriety of such an arrangement, I shall now lay before you an account of its habits.
The Black-and-white Creeper appears in the State of Louisiana as soon as the buds on the trees begin to expand, which happens about the middle of February. ”

“ One of our regular visitors twice a year is the brown creeper. He is so small and silent, and withal his color is so like that of the bark to which he clings, that I suspect he is seldom noticed even by persons who pass within a few feet of him. ”

“ Cottage. Creepers, for example. Why, sir, these creepers are the most mischievous nuisance that can afflict a family. There is no occasion for mentioning names, but—devil take all parasites. Some of the rogues will actually grow a couple of inches upon you in one day's time; and when all other honest plants are asleep, the creepers are hard at it all night long, stretching out their toes and their fingers, and catching an inextricable hold of every wall they can reach, till, finally, you see them thrusting their impudent heads through the very slates. ”