The spirit of curiosity is manifested by this little bird as well as by the larger species. When struck at, it will return in a moment, and peep into the net, or hover just in front of one’s face. The stories told of Humming-birds attacking men, and striking at the eyes with their needle-like bills, originated, I have no doubt, in the exaggeration of fear, misinterpreting this innocent curiosity. +Fam.+—CERTHIADÆ.—(_The Creepers._) BLACK AND WHITE CREEPER.[27] _Mniotilta varia._ _Motacilla varia_, +Linn.+ _Sylvia varia_, +Lath.+ _Certhia maculata_, +Wils.+ _Mniotilta varia_, +Vieill.+ _Certhia varia_, Aud. pl. 90. [27] Length 5 inches, expanse 8¹⁄₂, flexure 2⁸⁄₁₀, tail 2, rictus ⁶⁄₁₀, tarsus ⁸⁄₁₀, middle toe ⁶⁄₁₀. This pretty bird, whose lot has been to oscillate in the systems of naturalists from the Warblers to the Creepers and from the Creepers to the Warblers, appears to have as much ambiguity in its manners as in its structure. One day I noticed it, and watched its proceedings, in one of the spreading Black-withes, that form large tangled masses of long slender branches over a clear space of mud in the morasses, the topmost stratum of which alone is furnished with leaves, but that dense enough, not only with its own foliage, but also with the drapery of convolvulus that is usually hung in profusion over it. The little bird was mounting from the bottom hopping from twig to twig, searching and picking as it went up; when it reached the bushy top, it suddenly descended, apparently by dropping perpendicularly to the bottom, where it picked a little about the mud, then mounted gradually, and dropped as before. After proceeding thus two or three times, I secured it. At other times it affects the trunks of trees, even large ones, like a true Creeper, hopping diagonally up the perpendicular bole, and when at a good height, dropping down upon the wing, to alight again near the root, and proceed upward in another line. Now and then it stops to pick small insects from the crevices of the bark: and this sort of food I have always found in its stomach. It is rather common in Jamaica during the winter months: we first saw it on the 26th of September, and last on the 30th of April. The following interesting note accompanies a very correct drawing of this species by Robinson (Birds: large Folio):—“Motacilla alba et nigra varia.—It was pursued by a Hawk, and took sanctuary in Chateau-morant House. Mr. Holladay, overseer at Chateau in Clarendon, made me a present of the live bird, December 24th, 1760. It was very tame, and so hungry that it picked some feathers out of a dead bird, and ate them. It weighed somewhat less than two drachms.” +Fam.+—TURDIDÆ.—(_The Thrushes._) HOPPING DICK.[28]