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 creeper as is the nuthatch, which may be called the arboreal skater _par excellence_. The warbler does not go scuttling straight down a vertical bole or branch as the nuthatch does, but swings his lithe body from side to side, as if he did not loosen the hold of both feet simultaneously but alternately. Besides, both in ascending and descending he must have more frequent recourse to his wings to tide him over the difficult places. While the nuthatch can glide over the smoothest and hardest bark, and even descend the wall of a brick house, his sharp claws taking a firm grip on the edges of the bricks, the warbler is not quite so much of a gymnast, for when he strikes a difficult spot in his promenade ground, he flies or flits over it to the next protuberance which his claws can hold. He has a decided advantage, however, over all his warbler kin, for he is not only gifted with the creeping talent, but is also just as dexterous as they in perching on a horizontal twig.