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.