Vol. XXII 

 1905 



Chadbourne, Nestifig Habits of the Brown Creeper. I yo 



NESTING HABITS OF THE BROWN CREEPER 

 AS OBSERVED IN PLYMOUTH COUNTY, 

 MASSACHUSETTS, WITH DESCRIP- 

 TION OF A NEST FROM 

 NORTH SCITUATE. 1 



BY ARTHUR P. CHADBOURNE, M. D. 



Plates VI-IX. 



Ever since 1896, when I first spoke of the Brown Creeper (Cer- 

 thia fatniliaris americana) as undoubtedly breeding in one of the 

 white cedar swamps so common throughout Plymouth County, 

 Mass., 2 I have found these birds each summer during May or 

 June with the single exception of 1899, when I was unable to look 

 for them until July. My efforts to find the nest, however, were 

 unsuccessful until May, 1900, when I discovered one at North 

 Scituate, Mass., only a short distance from what is not inappropri- 

 ately called " the shore of the swamp." The swamp in question 

 is large and cut up into a number of narrow strips, each not unlike 

 a yard stick in shape, and having different owners ; consequently 

 the growth varies on each strip according to the time at which the 

 timber was last cut off. A few of the lots are still covered with 

 old cedar ; but the greater part is large second-growth, and mixed 

 hardwood ; in other cases, almost clear cedar, from fifteen to thirty- 

 five feet in height. Scattered about in the hardwood, and, to a 

 less extent in the cedar, are numerous white pines, hemlocks, 

 and here and there yellow, or, as they are locally called, "swamp 

 pines." It was on the southern edge of one of these narrow 

 strips, which had been cut "clean" two years before, that I 

 found the present nest. Deep mud and water had made the 

 place almost inaccessible until last year (1899), when the water 

 was more or less drained off by a ditch. Around this clearing 

 the growth is chiefly cedar and hemlock, with a few old white 



1 This was written, to a large extent, in 1900. The article, by Messrs. Ken- 

 nard and McKechnie which also appears in this number of 'The Auk,' covers 

 the published accounts of the nesting of the Creeper in the southern part of 

 its range, and I have omitted, therefore, what I had written on this subject. 



2 Cf. Auk, Vol. XIII, 1896, p. 346. 



