Creepers

“ 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 ”

“ Besides the single call-note or the sharp outcry with which the Creepers signalize their movements, and which they utter from time to time as they rapidly and busily move up and down the trunks and limbs, or flit from tree to tree, they have been generally regarded as having no song. ”

“ Thiese peculiar, weak-voiced Creepers are common in northern United States during the winter, when they may be seen slowly toiling up the tree trunks, searching the crannies of the bark for larvae. They make their nests behind loose hanking bark on old tree stubs, usually at low elevations, building them of twigs, bark, moss, etc., held together with cobwebs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Next they take all the similar poles, wrapt in creepers, in which they have bound up all the evil powers, and carry them out of the town and stick them in the ground on the various roads leading into the town. When they have done this, they say that they have driven the evils out of the town and shut the door against them. ”

“ 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 ? ”

“ The name creeper brings to our consideration one of the homeliest charms of the fireplace—the andirons. Creepers were the lower and smaller andirons placed between the great firedogs. The word is also applied to a low cooking spider, which could be pushed in among the embers. Cob-irons were the simplest form of andirons, and usually were used merely to support the spit; sometimes they had hooks to hold a dripping-pan under the spit. Sometimes a fireplace showed three pairs of andirons, on which logs could be laid at various heights. ”

“ I'm not a showy looking bird like my friend the Woodpecker, but my habits are something like his—and so is my tail. He uses his, you know, to aid him in climbing trees, and so do I. They call me the Creeper because I am always creeping over the timber in search of insects. If you ever see a brown-streaked little fellow, resembling a Wren, traveling up a tree in short stages, now stopping to pick out an insect lurking in the crevices of the bark, or returning head downwards to pounce on an unwary fly, that is your humble servant the Brown Creeper. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Another human was following Halfspoor! I was astonished. I knew where every hunter of the glen-folk ranged today, and none should be near the Fearful Forest. Kneeling, I stared closely at the footmark. I knew it well, as I knew the spoor of every man in this region. Laq the guardian was before me in the woodland.
Laq! He who had so oddly broken two of the oldest customs—say rather immutable laws—of humanity. We are supposed to love one another equally, and for the most part we do; reserving, as I have said, a special love for our mates and a heightened reverence for our guardians. ”

“ I bent down and lifted the pall of creeper screening the mouth of the cave. As I entered a bulky form rose up from one of the beds. There was no mistaking that massive figure, its slow, deliberate movement. I sprang back but the creeper hampered my movements and before I could gain the open, my shoulders were firmly grasped, my arms pinioned. I sought to twist myself free but I was held by those who must have held a man before and I could barely struggle in that iron grip. As I thus stood helpless I heard Marjorie cry out. ”

“ 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 facade showed mantled in the strange exotic creeper which he had mentioned, and the air was pungent with an odor of decaying vegetation, with which mingled the heavy perfume of the little nocturnal red flowers which bloomed luxuriantly upon the creeper. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Just as the nuthatch does—not by keeping both feet directly under him, as most people suppose, but by thrusting one foot slightly forward and the other outward and backward, thus preserving his balance at the same time that he holds himself firmly with his sharp little claws to his upright wall. Some of the pictures of the creeper seen in the books are not quite true to creeper methods of clinging and locomotion, for they represent him as stuck to the bark of a tree trunk with both feet invisible, presumably held directly under his striped breast. ”

“ The female lacks the grey on her head, also the rosy tint on her under parts.
This species breeds in suitable localities all over England, Wales, Ireland, and the greater part of Scotland.
It builds its nest in all kinds of low bushes, such as bramble, thorn, briar, and furze, and is so partial to nettles that it is generally known amongst country people as the “Nettle Creeper.” The structure, though deep, is of a very flimsy character, and consists of dead grass stems and horsehair, the latter being used as a lining. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I had seen what a really powerful blast on it could do to even a knifetooth bear.
"And the guardians have these whistles?" I asked him, and he answered, Yes, they did, though Laq must have lost his. That was why they needed no weapons when they strode the Fearful Forest. A man would not have to slay a carnivore when he could chase it away in fright, with its ears splitting.
And yet, all I sensed when Dy-lee blew the thing was a tingling of the eardrums. Strange and new! That an animal could hear a sound which a man could not! ”

“ He discovered that there are among us many aliens of another race, perhaps from another dimension, or from another planet, or—who knows? He thought they were out of a different dimension, because he could see silvery lines behind them which he believed to be that dimension's scenery, as it were. Each of these aliens, these usurpers, as he called them, had stolen a human body, and was using it as a focal point of entrance into our world. Do you follow me?"
"With some difficulty, sir."
"Drop the 'sir', Johnson. We're all plain human beings together in this." ”

“ 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." ”