72 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



pines, to which it descends, however, in winter, when it is also occa- 

 sionally seen in the cedars and pifions of the foot-hills, or in the de- 

 ciduous timber along the streams in the valleys." In Colorado, W. C. 

 Bradbury (1919) found it breeding at an altitude of nearly 11,000 

 feet, almost up to timberline. Fred M. Packard writes to me from 

 Estes Park, Colo. : "Pairs of these birds are scattered throughout the 

 conifer forests of the park, the principal nesting habitat being in the 

 Canadian and Hudsonian Zones. Between August and early October 

 a number descend into the Transition Zone, some reaching the plains. 

 Their upward migration is in April." 



Nesting. — The nesting habits, and apparently all other habits of the 

 Eocky Mountain creeper, are similar to those of other races and need 

 not be repeated here. Mr. Bradbury (1919) gives the following 

 measurements of a nest that he found in Colorado: "The extreme 

 dimensions of the nest, including foundation, are : Top to bottom, 7 

 inches ; width, 5 inches. While the nest itself was 3 inches deep and 

 4 inches broad in one direction, the restrictions due to its location con- 

 fined it to a breadth of IY2. inches in the other direction. In fact, so 

 limited was the space that the bark itself comprised one side of the 

 cup, the latter being II/2 by 2 inches at the rim and li/^ inches deep." 



Eggs. — The eggs of this creeper are indistinguishable from those 

 of the other races. The measurements of 20 eggs average 15.9 by 12.3 

 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 17.0 by 12.5, 

 16.5 by 13.0, 15.2 by 12.2, and 15.5 by 11.1 millimeters. 



Winter. — Frank L. Farley, of Camrose, Alberta, tells me that num- 

 bers of these creepers spend the winter in the spruce woods on the 

 Battle River, south of Camrose. He has never seen them foraging 

 on any trees but spruces, nor has he ever seen them there in summer, 

 and on only one or two occasions as migrants. 



CERTHIA FAMILIARIS ALBESCENS Berlepsch 



MEXICAN CREEPER 



Plate 17 



HABITS 



This is a Mexican subspecies that extends its range into the United 

 States for only a short distance into southern Arizona, with one record, 

 probably of a straggler, into extreme southwestern New Mexico. 



We found the Mexican creeper fairly common in the pine forests of 

 the Huachuca Mountains, above 8,000 feet and near the summits. The 

 keen ears of my companion, Frank C. Willard, frequently heard the 

 faint wiry notes of the birds, but I could not hear them and they were 

 not easy to see, except when they flew from one tree to another. Numer- 

 ous dead pines in this region offered attractive nesting sites. 



This subspecies differs from the other North American races in be- 



