Wings are small, for short
flight. Vivacious, busy, excitable, easily displeased, quick to take alarm.
Most of the species have scolding notes in addition to their lyrical, gushing
song, that seems much too powerful a performance for a diminutive bird. As a
rule, wrens haunt thickets or marshes, but at least one species is thoroughly
domesticated. All are insectivorous.
Carolina Wren.
House Wren.
Winter-Wren.
Long-billed Marsh Wren.
Short-billed Marsh Wren.
Family Certhiidae: CREEPERS
Only one species of this Old World family is found in America. It is a brown,
much mottled bird, that creeps spirally around and around the trunks of trees
in fall and winter, pecking at the larvae in the bark with its long, sharp
bill, and doing its work with faithful exactness but little spirit. It uses
its tail as a prop in climbing, like the woodpeckers.
Brown Creeper.
Family Paridae: NUTHATCHES AND TITMICE
Two distinct subfamilies are included under this general head. The nuthatches
(Sittinae) are small, slate-colored birds, seen chiefly in winter walking up
and down the barks of trees, and sometimes running along the under side of
branches upside down, like flies. Plumage compact and smooth. Their name is
derived from their habit of wedging nuts (usually beechnuts) in the bark of
trees, and then hatching them open with their strong straight bills.
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