reads through all the other music, could be heard the fine trills of
the field sparrows; the swinging chant of the creeping warblers and the
loud rattle of the Tennessee warblers ran high up in the scale,
furnishing a gossamer tenor; that golden optimist, the Baltimore
oriole, piped his cheery recitative in the tops of the trees;
chickadees supplied the minor strains and tufted titmice the alto; four
or five turtle doves soothed the ear with their meditative cooing;
while the calls and songs of numerous jays and a few yellow-breasted
chats made a kind of trombone accompaniment. Surely it is worth one's
while to hie early to the haunts of the birds to hear such a tumult of
song.

One spring I made up my mind to make a closer study than ever of the
dainty creeping warbler, wishing to know just how he contrives to
scuttle up and down the boles and branches of the trees with so much
ease and grace. He is the only warbler we have in eastern North
America that makes a habit of scaling the tree trunks and descending
them head downward. How does he do this? The muscles of his legs and
pelvis are as elastic as India rubber, so that he can twist and twirl
about in a marvelous way, pointing his head one moment to the east and
the next, without losing his hold, in the opposite direction. He is
able to swing himself around almost as if he were hung on a pivot.

But how does he hold himself on his shaggy wall as he hitches head
downward? 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. In the real position it is likely that one or both feet could
be seen, the one thrust forward and the other flung back and to one
side. At least one foot would be visible, whatever the angle at which
the bird would be inspected, and from many points of view both of his
tiny feet may be plainly seen in the position described.

Our little striped friend, usually called in the books the
black-and-white warbler, is not, after all, so expert a creepe