488 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



Though according to Mr. Brown occasionally arriving as 

 early as April thirtieth, the species more often arrives in 

 southern Maine about May third and in central and northern 

 Maine four to ten days later. In the fall the majority are 

 gone from near Bangor by September nineteenth, and from near 

 Portland at latest by the middle of October as recorded in 

 Mr. Brown's list. The species is, par excellence, well deserving 

 of the title of Creeping Warbler, for it creeps up and down 

 the trunks of trees, head up or down, runs around the limbs 

 and under the branches, peering into the crevices and crannies 

 of the bark. Here it finds worms, beetles, grubs, eggs of moths 

 and other insects, coccoons, spiders, caterpillars and similar 

 forms of life which it eagerly devours. I have rarely seen them 

 creeping about over fallen moss-covered logs in a similar 

 search for food. When they have exhausted the resources of 

 one tree they take short flight to another and resume feeding. 



In the breeding season the species is a bird of the woodlands, 

 seemingly most often found in rather open hardwood growth, 

 sometimes in the upland type of woods, more frequently perhaps 

 in the lower, richer, damper tracts of hard or mixed growth. 

 In the northern spruce woods of the State the species is very 

 rare, and though found locally even in quite goodly numbers 

 it is missing from extensive tracts of land where coniferous 

 growth predominates. In southern Maine the species seems 

 to occur more generally though still local during the nesting 

 season. 



The nest is always placed on the ground, on a mossy hum- 

 mock, by the side of a stump or log, under a bush or beneath 

 the upturned roots of a tree or in a very similar situation to 

 those described. A typical set in my collection was taken. 

 May 27, 1896, from a nest placed on the ground near a mossy 

 log, and was composed of leaves, strips of fine fibrous bark 

 and grasses, lined with grasses and fibrous roots of a black 

 color. The eggs are distinctive and characteristic, pure 

 white spotted with chestnut, umber and lavender. Some eggs 



