296 THE TAWNY CREEPER. 
PEOPLE are always remonstrating with the bird-man for the asser- 
tion that birds are to be found everywhere if you but know them.  Especi- 
ally do they talk of the great silent forests on the western slopes of the 
Cascade Mountains, where they have traveled for forty miles at a stretch 
without seeing or hearing a living thing. Well; you cannot show me a 
square mile of woodland in all that area where at least the following 
species of birds may not be found: Western Winter Wren, Western Golden- 
crowned Kinglet, Western Flycatcher, Varied Thrush and California 
Creeper*; and these, except the Flycatcher, at any season of the year. 
Silent birds they are for the most part, but each gives vent to a character- 
istic cry by which it may be known. 
The Creeper is, par excellence, the bird of the forest. To him alone 
the very bigness of the trees is of the greatest service; for his specialty 
is bark, and the more bark there is the harder is this little atom to dis- 
tinguish. Not only does he inhabit the deeper forests of the Cascade ranges 
and foothills, but his domain stretches eastward across the northern tier 
of pine-clad counties, and he is common among the tamaracks on the banks 
of the Pend dOreille. 
In June, in the Stehekin Valley of Chelan County, we found these 
Creepers leading about troops of fully grown young. A recently occu- 
pied nest was disclosed to us by a few twigs sticking out from behind 
a curled-up bark scale of a fire-killed tree, near the Cascade trail. The 
twigs proved to be eighteen inches below the top of the nest proper, 
which was thus about twelve feet from the ground. The intervening space 
was filled in loosely with twigs, bark-strips, moss, cotton, and every other 
sort of woodsy loot. The mass was topped by a crescent-shaped cushion 
over an inch in thickness, deeply hollowed in the center, six inches from 
horn to horn, and four and a half from bole to bark; and this cushion 
was composed entirely of soft inner bark-strips and a vegetable fiber re- 
sembling flax in quality—altogether a splendid creation. 
No. 115. 
TAWNY CREEPER. 
A. O. U. No. 726c. Certhia familiaris occidentalis Ridgway. 
Synonym.—CaLIFORNIAN CREEPER (A. O. U.). 
Description.— ‘Similar to C. f. zelotes but browner and more suffused with 
buffy above; wing markings more pronouncedly buff; underparts more buffy” 
a. Shading into the following variety, C. f. occidentalis, upon the lower levels. 
