Vol. XXII"| Kennard and McKechnie, Brown Creeper. I 83 



swamps at all. So much for my cedar swamp at North Scituate. 

 In addition, in 1897, I saw a pair of Brown Creepers in another 

 cedar swamp some six miles distant from the one in which the 

 nest was found in 1900; and in 1899, about May 12, I met two 

 pairs of Brown Creepers in what is known as "Valley Swamp," 

 near South Weymouth. It seems to me that the right of the 

 Brown Creeper to a place among the regular summer birds nesting 

 locally and sparingly in favorable localities in southern Massachu- 

 setts, is sufficiently vindicated, after having been challenged and 

 doubted for many years. The conditions which determine the 

 distribution of the Creeper in this region, are apparently a very 

 moist, humid atmosphere, dense evergreen growth, through which 

 the sun penetrates with difficulty, and considerable extent of wild 

 woodland which is not disturbed by man throughout the nesting 

 season. That the bird is common in the breeding season I do 

 not believe. That it is far more common than has been supposed, 

 it seems to me is also evident. That it is and has been a regular 

 summer resident in the cedar swamps of Massachusetts — unseen 

 because usually inaccessible — needs little if any additional proof. 

 Unfortunately, May and June have been with me the busiest 

 months of the year, and I have had little opportunity to search 

 as carefully or as often for the bird and its nest as I have desired. 



THE BREEDING OF THE BROWN CREEPER 

 IN EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS. 



BY FREDERIC H. KENNARD AND FREDERIC B. MCKECHNIE. 



Plates X-XII. 



As a first record of the breeding of the Brown Creeper (Certhia 

 familiaris americand) in eastern Massachusetts we have the account 

 of Dr. J. A. Allen in his ' Catalogue of the Birds of Springfield, 

 Mass.' 1 in which he describes the bird as "common. Resident; 



1 Proceedings Essex Institute, Vol. IV, July, 1864, p. 69. 



