“I have been telling you about woodpeckers and the nuthatch, insect-eaters with chisel-shaped beaks for cutting into trees and getting out the worms hidden in the wood. Then I spoke of the wryneck, which does not use its beak for hacking old tree trunks, but can, like the woodpecker, stick out its tongue on the ants’ path and catch the insects with the glue of its saliva. Now we come to some more insect-eaters, but their work is less laborious than that of the woodpecker. They do not hack and hew tree trunks, but merely seek their prey in the cracks and crannies that serve as its refuge. For this kind of hunting they have a long and slender beak that curves slightly downward. “As their name implies, climbers show great agility in climbing. Their beak is very narrow, the better to penetrate the cracks in the bark of trees, and it is bent like an arch and has a fine point. Their feet have three talons pointing forward and one, much stronger, pointing backward. We have in France two climbers, one of which is furnished with a tail composed of a few long, stiff feathers that serve as a support to the bird in climbing, as the woodpecker’s tail serves that bird, while the other is not thus equipped. “The so-called common climber is a tiny bird with whitish plumage spotted with brown above and tinged with red on the rump and tail. Its life is a most laborious one. It frequents woods, orchards, and the trees of our public promenades, where you may see it always busily engaged in examining every square inch of the surface of tree trunks in order to thrust its slender beak into the cracks of the bark and catch any lurking gnats, bugs, caterpillars, or cocoons. It runs down the trunk as fast as it runs up, which woodpeckers cannot do, their progress always being upward, either in a straight line or spirally. It ascends in little leaps and bounds, and helps itself along by propping its tail against the tree. Arrived at the top of the trunk, it descends quickly and begins the same operations on the next tree. At every step it cheers itself up with its sharp, flute-like cry. At nightfall it retires into some hole in a tree trunk. There, too, it makes its nest, which is formed of fine grasses and bits of moss held together by threads from spiders’ webs. Its eggs, from five to seven in number, are pure white with red spots.