Brewster on the American Brown Creeper. 205 



Were it not for Professor Aughey's testimony we might fairly be in- 

 clined to suspect that all our earlier accounts of this Creeper's nesting 

 were either founded upon hearsay or were purely fictitious. But we 

 have this gentleman's satisfactory assurance that in Nebraska the 

 Creeper does sometimes nest in holes in trees. Being desirous of ob- 

 taining further particulars regarding the nest mentioued by him in his 

 paper on " The Nature of the Food of the Birds of Nebraska," and 

 referred to by Dr. Brewer in the April Bulletin, I wrote to Professor 

 Aughey on the subject, and the following is an extract from his very 

 courteous reply : "In reference to Certhia familiaris, it is certain 

 that in Nebraska, where its favorite position for nesting under scales 

 of loose bark is in some localities difficult to obtain, it makes a nest 

 in knot-holes. I have found two other nests in such places, — one in 

 June, 1877, between Bellevue and Omaha, on the Missouri Bluffs, in 

 a box-elder tree ; another in June of the present season on Middle 

 Creek, four miles from Lincoln, also in a box-elder. I have also 

 found several in the ordinary positions where old cottonwoods or 

 elms abounded. It is therefore my conviction that this method of 

 nesting in knot-holes was inaugurated because of the scarcity of the 

 ordinary positions. I could not find any tree near by where a nest- 

 ing-place under bark could have been obtained in these instances of 

 nesting in knot-holes." 



Reasoning upon the analogy furnished by the above facts, it seems 

 not impossible that Eastern nests also may occasionally occur in 

 holes, but in the present state of our definite knowledge on the sub- 

 ject, it is perhaps idle to speculate on a question which can only be 

 settled by future investigations. It is, however, certainly not too 

 much to say that in the regions where it is best known, the Creeper 

 habitually nests behind bark-scales, and prefers them to all other 

 situations. 



I should be doing injustice to my subject were I to close the 

 present article without touching upon the breeding habits of the 

 birds, the more especially as very little concerning them seems to 

 have been previously written. Of the nests taken during the past 

 season only one was in process of construction when found. The 

 female was putting in the lining, and the work was so vigorously 

 pushed that by the next morning the whole was completed and the 

 first egg laid. Her rambles in search of material were limited to 

 the immediate vicinity, and rarely extended beyond the distance of 

 a few rods. Winding her way up some crumbling spruce or fir, she 



