_Certhia flaveola_, var. β. LINN. Syst. Nat. ed. 12, I, 1766, 187.
(“_Certhia_” _bahamensis_, CATESBY, Car. tab. 59. Bahamas.)
_Certhiola flaveola_, BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 924, pl. lxxxiii,
f. 3 (Indian Key, Fla.). _Certhiola bahamensis_, REICH. Handb. I,
1853, 253 (CATESBY, Car. tab. 59, Bahamas).—CASSIN, Pr. A. N. S.
Ph. 1864, 271. _C. bairdi_, CABANIS, Jour. Orn. 1865, 412 (_C.
flaveola_, BAIRD, Birds N. A.).
SP. CHAR. (11,951 ♂, Bahamas.) Above dark dusky-brown; scarcely darker
on the head; the rump yellow. Edge of wing and a triangular patch
covering the front of breast (the angle behind) pale yellow; the rest
of under parts pale ashy-white, purest on front and sides of neck and
on crissum; on flanks somewhat soiled and rather darker. A broad
superciliary white stripe (not crossing the forehead) from bill to
nape, but little lighter than the throat; the line of feathers
immediately behind the nostrils, and a small patch at base of lower
mandible under the tips, with the usual stripe from bill through the
eye, being blackish. White spot at base of quills very distinct
externally; the posterior outline on each outer web of the primaries
not quadrate, but running out obliquely behind and on the outermost
quill reaching the shaft. Edges of quills narrowly margined with
grayish-white; on the secondaries continued round the tips. No
distinct bands on the coverts. Outer tail-feathers broadly tipped with
white; this even involving the innermost, but reduced to a narrow
edge. Total length, 4.40; wing, 2.30; tail, 1.80.
Bill: Length from forehead, .62; from nostril, .41; along gape, .59;
depth at base, .17. Legs: Tarsus, .75; middle toe and claw, .58; claw
alone, .17; hind toe and claw, .45; claw alone, .20.
HAB. Bahamas and Keys of southeast coast of Florida.
A specimen from the Florida Keys (10,367) is rather darker than those
from the Bahamas, the white less extended, and not quite reaching the
shafts in the outer quills.
HABITS. This species, belonging properly to the Bahaman group of the
West Indian Islands, was found at Indian Key, Fla., January 31, 1858,
by Mr. Würdemann, where it appeared to be not at all rare. Nothing is
known of its habits, but they are doubtless nearly the same as those
of the allied species. The _C. flaveola_ is known in Jamaica as the
Banana Quit, Honey-Sucker, and Black and Yellow Creeper. According to
the description of them given by Mr. Gosse, these birds, scarcely
larger than the Humming-Birds, are often seen in company with them,
probing the flowers for similar purposes, but in a very different
manner. Instead of hovering like the Humming-Bird in front of the
blossom, for which its short wings would be incompetent, these birds
alight on the tree and proceed in a very business-like manner. Hopping
from twig to twig in an active manner, they carefully examine each
blossom. In doing this they throw their bodies into a variety of
positions, often clinging by the feet with the back downwards, the
better to reach the interior of a blossom with their curved beaks and
peculiar tongue. The objects of these researches are the small insects
which are always found in the interior of flowers. This bird is
unsuspecting and familiar, and very freely resorts to the blossoming
shrubs of the gardens and yards. Mr. Gosse mentions, in evidence of
this familiarity, that a large moringa-tree under his window, as he
was writing, and which all through the year was profusely set with
fragrant blossoms, and was a favorite resort of these birds, was being
carefully scrutinized by two active little Creepers. Although within a
few feet of his window, they pursued their examinations, perfectly
undisturbed by his looking on. As they move about they utter a soft
sibilant note.
The nests of this little bird are usually built in those low trees and
bushes to which are fastened the nests of the brown wasps, and in
close contiguity to them. Mr. Gosse regards this singular predilection
as a remarkable exercise of instinct, if not of reason, as the evident
object of it is the protection afforded by the presence of those
formidable insects, though upon what terms of amity this defensive
alliance is kept does not appear.
These Creepers incubate during the months of May, June, and July. On
the 4th of May, Mr. Gosse observed one with a bit of “silk-cotton” in
her beak, and found the skeleton of the nest just commenced in a bush
of the _Lantana camara_. It was evidently to be of dome shape, and so
far had been constructed entirely of silk-cotton. The completed nests
are made in the form of a globe, with a small opening below the side.
The walls are very thick, composed of dry grasses intermixed
irregularly with the down of asclepias. One of these nests was fixed
between the twigs of a branch of a _Bauhinia_ projecting over a
highway. Another, found towards the end of June, was built in a bush
of _Lantana_, and of the same structure. It contained two eggs,
greenish-white, thickly but indefinitely dashed with reddish at the
larger end. Mr. Gosse quotes a Mr. Robinson as giving their dimensions
at .44 by .31 of an inch, while his own specimens are much larger than
this, measuring .63 by nearly .50. Two eggs of _C. flaveola_, from
Jamaica, in my cabinet, measure, .68 by .51 and .68 by .49 of an inch.
In one the ground is a dull white, so generally and thickly covered
with minute but confluent dots of reddish-brown as to impart a pinkish
tinge to the whole egg. In the other the ground is a dull white,
sparingly marked with blotches of brown over about three fourths of
its surface, but at the larger end covered with a crown of larger and
confluent blotches of subdued purple and dark umber, intermingled with
a few lines of a darker hue, almost black.
Two eggs of _G. newtoni_, from St. Croix, are of a more rounded-oval
shape, and measure .69 by .45 and .65 by .44 of an inch. They have a
dull white ground, but this is so uniformly and generally covered with
confluent reddish-brown markings as to be nowhere very distinct.
The St. Croix species is called the Sugar-Bird in that island, from
its habit of entering the curing-houses, through the barred windows,
probably attracted thither by the swarms of flies. It is a very
familiar species, haunting gardens, and often entering houses, and
never manifesting any alarm. It keeps in pairs, and breeds from March
to August. Mr. Newton states that it builds a domed and often pensile
nest, with a small porch, or pent-house roof, over the entrance,
generally at the extremity of a leafy bough. The nest is generally
very untidy on the outside, and is composed of coarse grass and
cotton, with feathers on the inside. It deposits its eggs before the
completion of the nest, “rather to the discomfiture of the oölogist,
who delays inserting his finger into the structure while he sees one
or both of the birds busy with a tuft of grass or cotton in their
bills, until at last he finds their eggs already hatched.” Mr. Newton
observed one instance in which two broods were reared in the same
nest, with only an interval of ten days between the time the young
left it and the laying of an egg.