296 THE TAWNY CREErKH. ^ 



I'l".( )l*l.l-l ;irc always remonstrating witli tlic binl-nian for the asser- 

 tion tliat Ijjnls are to Ixf fonnil cverywliere if you but know tlieni. Ks|X'ci- 

 ally do they talk of the great silent forests on the western slojies 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 

 stjuare mile of woodlaml in all that area where at least the following 

 species of birds may not be found : Western WiiUer Wren, Western (lolden- 

 crowned Kinglet. Western Flycatcher, N'aried 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 verv bigness of the trees is of the greatest service; for his specialty 

 is bark, and the more bark there is the liarder is this little atom to dis- 

 tinguish. Not only <ioes he inhabit the deeper forests of the Cascade ranges 

 and foothills, but his <lomain stretches eastward across the northern tier 

 of )>ine-clad counties, and he is common among the tamaracks on the banks 

 of the I'end d'Oreille. 



In June, in the Stehekin \alley of Ciielan County, we fouml these 

 Creei)ers 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. Tlie 

 twigs proved to be eighteen inches below the toj) of the nest proi)er, 

 wiiich was thus about twelve feet fmm the ground. The intervening sjjacc 

 was filled in loosely with twigs, bark-strips, moss, cotton, and every other 

 sort of woodsv 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 comixised entirely of st)ft inner bark-strips and a vegetable RIkt re- 

 sembling flax in f|uality — altogether a si>lendi(l creation. 



No. 115. 



r.AWW CREEPKR. 



A. ( ). r. Xo. -26c. Certhia familiaris occidentalis Ridgway. 

 Synonym, — C.m.iform.w Ckii-imk i .\. ( ). V.). 



Description. — "Similar to C. f. zclotcs but browner and more sufTused with 

 biitTv above; wing markings more pronoinicedly l)uflf: undcrparts more bufTy" 



a. Shading into tht following varittjf, C. f. occiilftilnlit. upon llic lower levels 



