. A WOODLAND COASTER. 185 



frightened away. It is quite diflicult to distin- 

 guish his alarm-call from that of the golden-crowned 

 kinglet. I may be in error, but it seems to me the 

 kinglet omits the m in his call ; that is, he says 

 z-e-e-e instead of z-e-e-e-m. 



In this latitude the creeper seldom displays his 

 musical powers. Still, I have heard him warble a 

 feeble little lay or whisper-song in the spring ; but 

 in his breeding haunts in the North it is said that 

 his songs are sometimes " loud, powerful and sur- 

 passingly sweet," and at other times '' more feeble 

 and plaintive." These more elaborate vocal efforts, 

 I am sorry to say, I have never had the good for- 

 tune to hear. 



Mr. William Brewster, who has written so much 

 on the birds of North America, has given an inter- 

 esting account of the creeper's nesting and breeding 

 habits in the western part of Maine. In every in- 

 stance, he says, the nest was placed behind the 

 partly-loosened bark of a balsam fir, althougli 

 spruce, birch and elm stubs were more numerous. 

 ^' Within the loose scale of bark," he continues, 

 '' was crammed a mass of twigs and other rubbish ; 

 upon this was placed the finer bark of various 

 trees, with an intermixture of a little usnea moss 

 and a number of spiders' cocoons." From five to 



