The Creeper, when at rest, is not at all graceful, but it is most interesting to watch its zig-zag course from the tree trunk out to the angles of the crooked branches, picking up insects which are invisible to us, with its slender, sharp bill. In watching the manœuvres of all bark-feeding birds, you must keep in mind that the eyes of birds are powerful mag-nifiers, and that to them objects appear twenty-five times as large as they do to us.
Worm-eating Warbler: Helmitherus vermivorus.
- Length:
- 5.50 inches.
- Male and Female:
- Head yellowish brown, black stripe on each side of crown, also back of eye. Above greenish olive. Under parts buffy. Bill and feet light.
- Song:
- Similar to that of Chipping Sparrow, —" treer-rrr-rrr," — from which Mr. Ridgway says that "it is difficult sometimes for the most critical listener to distinguish it."
- Season:
- Rare summer resident in southern New England.
- Breeds:
- In all parts of its United States range, but casually in the northerly sections.
- Nest:
- On the ground in woods, and in swamp tussocks, or in a ground hollow like the Ovenbirds, and composed chiefly of leaves.
- Eggs:
- 4-5, clear white, specked with reddish brown.
- Range:
- Eastern United States, north to southern New York and southern New England, west to eastern Nebraska and Texas, south, in winter, to Cuba and Central America.
This compact, soberly clad Warbler is not at all common north of New Jersey, and, even where it is plentiful, it is very likely to escape notice; for its colouring is such as to make it blend with the ground upon which it nests, or with the branches and trunks of trees where it frequently creeps and circles in feeding, after the manner of the Brown Creeper.: Its nest seems also to be well concealed, and generally in remote places, for the descriptions of it are infrequent.
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