Family CÆREBIDÆ.—The Creepers.
As already stated on [page 177], there is little to distinguish the Cærebidæ from the Sylvicolidæ, except by the longer and more protracted tongue, and by the narrower gape in some of the forms. The genera Certhiola, Cæreba, Diglossa, etc., have peculiarities by which they are easily recognized; but when we come to such members as Dacnis, Conirostrum, etc., it becomes very difficult to separate them from the slender-billed Tanagers, the Wood Warblers, and the Helminthophagas.
Although the family is one widely distributed, in numerous genera, over Middle and South America, but one, Certhiola, belongs to North America, this being represented by a species, or rather a race, abundant in the Bahamas, and occasionally met with in the Florida Keys. We shall therefore give only the diagnosis of this family.
Genus CERTHIOLA, Sundevall.
Certhiola, Sundevall, Vet. Akad. Handl. Stockholm, 1835, 99. (Type, Certhia flaveola, Linn.)
Certhiola flaveola, Sund.
38055
Gen. Char. Bill nearly as long as the head; as high as broad at base, elongated, conical, very acute, and gently decurved from base to tip. Culmen uniformly convex; gonys concave. No bristles at base of bill. Tail rounded, rather shorter than the wings. Tarsi longer than the middle toe. Iris brown? Nest pensile and arched. Eggs with yellowish ground dotted thickly with rufous spots.
This genus is one of those especially characterizing the West Indies, almost every island as far as known having its peculiar species, differing, it is true, in very slight characters, but always constant to the normal type. Cuba alone has so far furnished no representative of this genus, its place being supplied apparently by Cæreba cyanea. The specimens from St. Thomas I cannot distinguish from those of Porto Rico, but this is, so far as the series before me indicates, the only case where one species occurs on two islands. All the West Indian species, nine or ten in number, agree in having the whole upper part nearly uniformly dusky or blackish; the head and back being concolored, while of the three or four South American all but one (C. luteola) have the back more olivaceous, the head much darker. Again, the West Indian species, with a single exception (C. bananivora), have both webs of lateral tail-feathers broadly and about equally tipped with white; while in all the South American this white is more restricted on the inner