78 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



quently be a most arduous piece of business. Twigs have to be thrust into the 

 crevice until the first dozen or so lodge firmly, then the rest is easy. In every 

 nest quite a little mound of twigs is found on the ground below, showing how 

 persevering the little architects must have been in the face of repeated failure. 

 Probably they consider such twigs as unsuitable; at any rate it never seems to 

 occur to them to pick up a twig when once it has fallen. Scattered amongst this 

 network of twigs is always a little green moss and a considerable amount of 

 down taken fi-om ferns, willows and cotton-woods. What purpose these serve, 

 beyond ornamentation, must be known only to the birds themselves. On top, 

 and firmly embedded, is the egg cup of the nest, which is composed of a thick 

 felting of fine strips from the inner bark of the cedar, with occasionally a few 

 feathers. 



Dawson (1910) tells of a nest that contained, in the cup alone, 

 "cowhair (red and black and white), feathers, horsehair, moss, fine 

 bark, macerated weed-stems, chips, fir needles, bits of white cloth, 

 ravelings, string, cocoons, spider-egg cases, catkins, moth-wings, and 

 vegetable fiber." This was a very unusual collection of material. 



S. F. Rathbun sends me the following very good description of a 

 nest of the California creeper, found near Tacoma, Wash., on June 2, 

 1912 : "The base of the nest was entirely of bits of bark and rotten 

 wood, this being merely a mass of material lying at the bottom of the 

 space behind the bark. On this was very uniformly placed dry hemlock 

 and fir twigs, these being of a length that conformed perfectly to the 

 spaces remaining at each side of the nest proper, many of these twigs 

 being bent to accomplish this ; generally their ends projected upward 

 with the tips curving somewhat beneath; and among these twigs were 

 many flat, thin pieces of inner fir bark and a little rotten wood. What 

 may be called the nest proper was entirely of plant fibres of a grayish 

 color, finely shredded and very soft, this having the appearance of 

 wool, as it was very elastic ; and this material was firmly bound on its 

 inner surface by a few horsehairs. It was not carelessly built in any 

 way, but was neatly and carefully put together, and, unlike some others 

 of its kind, substantially built." 



Eggs. — Creepers' eggs are all about alike and show similar varia- 

 tions. Those of this subspecies are no exception to the rule. The 

 measurements of 40 eggs of this race average 15.5 by 11.9 millimeters; 

 the eggs showing the four extremes measure 16.7 by 12.4, 16.2 by 12.5, 

 14.0 by 11.2, and 14.6 by 11.1 millimeters. 



Food. — Professor Beal (1907) writes: "Only seven stomachs of the 

 California creeper were available for examination, but they confirm the 

 good opinion observers have formed of the habits of this bird. Like 

 the titmice and nuthatches, the creeper is an indefatigable forager on 

 the trunks and branches of trees, and the food it obtains there is of the 

 same nature — that is, small beetles (many of them weevils), wasps, 

 ants, bugs, caterpillars, and a few spiders. 



"Of the seven stomachs examined, only one contained vegetable food, 



