62 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



especially because each took a statiou in the dark shadow immediately below 

 a horizoutal limb. Here they remained motionless for many minutes. Later, 

 two young birds, one following the other, moved upward by feeble hitches and 

 perched or squatted close to the trunk in the right angle formed by the limb. In 

 hitching over the bark, they moved almost straight upward and whenever I saw 

 them as a silliouette against the sky, and could thus determine the point, they did 

 not use their tails for support. The shortness of the young Creeper's tails gave 

 to their bodies a rounded, uubird-like outline and, with their short, stubby bills 

 of wide gape and their squatting position on the upright bark they suggested 

 tree-toads in no small degree. Like most young birds after they leave the nest, 

 the fledgling Creepers were more noisy than they had been the day before. 

 They announced their whereabouts to their parents with a note not previously 

 lieard— a high sibilant call, "tssssi," or sometimes clearly divided into two 

 syllables thus : ''ts-tssi." The voice was very sliglitly tremulous and, although the 

 pitch and delivery of the notes were decidedly Creeper-like, they suggested to 

 Mr. Faxon and me a flock of Cedarbirds. 



William Brewster (1938) states that the young birds "when held 

 against the trunk of a tree instantly crept upwards using the short 

 tail precisely in the manner of the old bird." Dayton Stoner (1932) 

 speaks of the young creepers thus : 



Below the nest, the bark clung flrmly to the tree, but above, it bulged out so 

 that it formed a canopy for the nest beneath which the young birds might have 

 taken their first lessons in climbing. 



As I stood viewing the situation in general and the young birds in particular 

 four of them climbed into this covered space and, as I attempted to capture 

 them, made a short flight into the surrounding vegetation. A little later I saw 

 an adult feeding one of the youngsters clinging to the side of a tree. The young 

 one did fairly well in its first attempts at climbing in the open, but seemed to 

 have some difliculty in clinging to the smootli bark of the maples and moved about 

 on these trees until it came to a little ledge of bark where it appeared more 

 comfortable. 



Cordelia J. Stanwood (MS.) gstimates the incubation period as 

 about 11 or 12 days. 



Plumages. — [Author's note: The young nestling is sparsely cov- 

 ered on feather tracts of the upper parts with dark gray down, which 

 later adheres to the tips of the juvenal plumage. ^ This first plumage 

 is much like that of the adult, but the colors are paler and duller and 

 the plumage is softer and looser; the streaks on the head and back 

 are broader and less sharply defined and tinged brownish ; the rump 

 is paler russet, and the wing coverts are edged with pale buff; the 

 under parts are buffy white, flecked on the chin, throat, and sides with 

 dusky. 



A partial post juvenal molt, beginning early in August and involv- 

 ing all the contour plumage, wing coverts, and tail, but not the rest 

 of the wings, produces a first winter plumage which is practically in- 

 distinguishable from that of the adult. Dr. D wight (1900) says of 

 this plumage : "Similar to previous plumage. Above darker, the 

 rump much rustier, the crown and back with white shaft streaks, 



