64 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



limb than on top of it, for he went over the top only occasionally; 

 evidently most of his food is to be found on the under side." 



O. A. Stevens, of Fargo, N. Dak., in a letter to Mr. Bent, describes the 

 behavior of creepers at his feeding station. He says : "From all our 

 observations we feel that they are slow to change their habits. In the 

 early winter of 1941-42, three birds appeared in the tree near our 

 window shelf and repeatedly worked up the tree past suet, nuts, and 

 doughnuts where other birds were feeding, but rarely paid any atten- 

 tion to the food. After a time they came to the window shelf and ate 

 the chopped peanuts regularly. It was amusing to see them swallow 

 pieces as large as a millet seed. Once I saw a creeper pound a larger 

 piece of suet against the tree. 



"Dr. W. J. Breckenridge of Minnesota told me that the creepers 

 .were fond of peanut butter put in holes of a stick. I prepared such a 

 stick and hung it in the tree. The first results were disappointing. 

 Once a bird sampled it and went on up the tree wiping his bill every 

 few hops. A week or two later they were seen to visit it frequently, 

 remaining for some little time. One day when I took it down, they 

 looked for it repeatedly. The tree stands some 10 feet from the 

 window shelf. In coming to the shelf, the birds always work up the 

 tree to the level of the shelf or higher, watch to see if the coast is 

 clear, then drop as if to reach the side of the house below, but rising 

 to alight on the shelf. They never come down to the shelf as most 

 birds do. Frequently they eat a little snow from the tree ; occasionally 

 they walk out from the base of the tree on the ground. When they 

 drop to a lower part of the tree, they always seem to fall off their 

 perch and flutter, insectlike for a few moments." 



The brown creeper is not a shy bird as we meet it during its migra- 

 tion ; it doubtless sees few men on its breeding grounds in the northern 

 forests. Clarence M. Arnold (1908) relates the following instance of 

 the bird's disregard of man : 



While walking along a wide wood-path I stopped to observe a mixed flock of 

 winter birds in the trees nearby. There were Chickadees, Golden-crowned 

 Kinglets, a Downy Woodpecker and a Brown Creeper, the latter being the first 

 I had seen this season. For tbis reason, and also because this species is much 

 rarer than the others, I was watching it closely through my field glass, standing 

 almost motionless in the center of the path ; meanwhile, it flew to the base of 

 a chestnut tree about 50 feet from me, and hitched its way up the rough bark. 

 It had reached the lowest branches, about 20 feet from the ground, when 

 suddenly it left the tree and darted straight at me, and, to my amazement, 

 alighted on the left leg of my trousers, just above my shoe, in front, evidently 

 mistaking the black and gray color for the bark of a tree. 



Arthur C. Bent (MS.) gives another example of the fearlessness 

 of a bird on her nest. He says : "Hersey and I had been watching a 

 pair of creepers in a pine grove, mixed with a few other trees, partly 

 swampy. Today we found the nest 17 feet up under a loose slab of 



