IQO Kennard and McKechnie, Broivn Creeper. \x^ 



On May 14 we both returned to this swamp and were lucky 

 enough to find one of the birds within five minutes by our usual 

 method of listening for their call notes. After watching him 

 for perhaps ten minutes he suddenly flew to the foot of a 

 small dead red maple, and from an aperture in this same maple 

 hopped the female whom he fed. This aperture was about three 

 and one-half feet from the ground and led into the nest, which 

 was built like a Chickadee's in the heart of the tree, and which 

 contained seven well incubated eggs. Although it was rain- 

 ing, McKechnie started in immediately to photograph the nest, 

 while Kennard endeavored to keep the female away from it till 

 McKechnie could set up his camera, and catch her if possible 

 as she entered. (Plate XI, Fig. 2.) She seemed, however, to 

 be particularly solicitous, succeeded in getting back on to her 

 eggs, and stuck so close that after pounding on the tree, shaking 

 it, etc., all to no purpose, we finally had to pry her off with a stick, 

 a dangerous process so far as the eggs were concerned. When off 

 the nest she never went far away, while the male, on his part, sel- 

 dom came near except to feed her, which he did several times, 

 both when she was on her eggs and came out to be fed, and after 

 she had been dislodged and was on some neighboring tree. 



The maple was one of twins — the other being alive — and 

 stood in a very large wet maple swamp (Plate XII, Fig. 1) in 

 which there were a few pines and hemlocks, large and small, 

 scattered about, but in which there appeared to be none of those 

 large dead trees with pendant strips of bark which the Creepers 

 seem to like best; this probably accounting for their building in 

 holes both in 1903 and 1904. 



On the afternoon of May 1, 1904, while walking along the edge 

 of another swamp in Canton, perhaps a mile or so from the swamp 

 where we had in the morning been watching the above Creepers, 

 we first heard and then saw another Creeper with something in her 

 bill. We sat down and kept quiet until she finally flew to a dead 

 white pine and disappeared under a piece of bark some twelve or 

 fifteen feet from the ground. She soon emerged, however, and 

 repeated the operation several times, until finally appearing to catch 

 sight of us, she vanished. We went to the foot of the tree, but 

 could see nothing and did not dare to climb it for fear of further 

 disturbing her. 



