This is a family of birds who creep; that is, they appear not to hop up a tree trunk like a woodpecker, or walk up like a nuthatch, but they hug close to the bark with claws and tail, and seem really to creep.

The one member of the family in this country is called the Brown Creeper. He is a little fellow in streaks and stripes of brown, and he looks so much like the tree trunks that one can hardly see him. He has a slender, curved bill, just the thing to poke into cracks in the bark, and pull out the insects and eggs hidden there. His tail feathers are curious. They have sharp points on the ends, so that he can press them against the bark, and help support himself.

The creeper's way of getting up a trunk is to begin near the ground, and go round and round the trunk till he reaches the lowest branch. Then he flings himself off, and flies to the roots of another tree, and goes up that in the same way. A brown creeper once came into a house, and found it so comfortable, and food so plentiful, and people so kind, that he stayed. He was very tame, and his great pleasure was to climb up a man's leg or a woman's skirt, exactly as he climbs a tree trunk, going round and round.

Quiet and demure as he looks, this little bird sometimes plays rather funny pranks. He has been seen to whirl around like a top, and again to fly up and down close to a tree trunk, apparently just for fun. He has a sweet little song, which we do not often hear, for his voice is not strong.

The brown creeper mother takes a droll place for a nest. It is behind the loose bark of an old tree. She makes a snug little home under the bark roof, and lines it with feathers, and there she brings up her three or four little creepers. She is as well protected from sun and rain as if she had an umbrella, and it is such an odd place that it was not for a long time known where her cunning little nest was made.

This bird nests in the Eastern States, in northern New York and New England, and in California he nests in the mountains, but he goes South in winter. When he wants to hide, he makes use of a clever trick, which shows that he knows how much he looks like the trunk of a tree. He simply flattens himself against the bark, and keeps perfectly still. Then you can hardly see him, though you look right at him. You can see in the picture how he looks.