56 Tyler, Brown Creeper in Massachusetts. [jan. 



Having delivered the food to the young birds, the parents waited 

 motionless for a moment. If a nestling was ready to void excre- 

 ment, he began at once to hitch and shuffle about in the nest, then, 

 straightening his legs and raising his tail, he slowly expelled a 

 faecal sac upward toward his parent. The black needle-like bill 

 of the adult bird closed immediately upon the sac and steadied it, — ■ 

 perhaps aided in its delivery — until it was entirely expelled. The 

 voiding of excrement was a leisurely process; all the movements 

 were slow; there was none of the snapping up and snatching one 

 sees in a nest of Robins. 



In watching a pair of Brown Creepers about their nest, whether 

 they are building, incubating their eggs, or feeding their young, one 

 is soon impressed by an air of happiness and calm which pervades 

 the active little birds. From the behavior of many birds, one 

 comes to associate the finding of a nest with anxiety expressed in 

 various ways, — with the nervous panic of the Warblers, the Robin's 

 hysterical apprehension, the noisy complaint of the Crow and even 

 with the polite uneasiness of the gentle Field Sparrow. The Brown 

 Creeper, however, although doubtless observant, does not seem to 

 look upon man as a danger; he continues his work uninfluenced, 

 I believe, by close scrutiny. Happy and calm, even under observa- 

 tion, the Creepers appear preoccupied in their work and the com- 

 radeship of a pair is very pretty to see. The male shares with the 

 female her interest in the progress of the nest; even although he 

 knows nothing of nest building he collects material and offers it 

 to his mate. Ever ready to assist, he feeds the female while she 

 builds and while she is sitting and, after the young are hatched, 

 he is no less, industrious than she in caring for their needs. 



The young birds left the Concord nest early on June 4 (pos- 

 sibly June 3). At 8 a. m., two were clinging, thirty feet from 

 the ground, to the trunk of a living white pine tree which stood not 

 far from the nest. One or two more were on another pine trunk. 

 The little birds were extremely difficult to find by reason of their 

 small size, their distance from the ground, their inconspicuous color 

 and especially because each took a station in the dark shadow im- 

 mediately below a horizontal limb. Here they remained motion- 

 less for many minutes. Later, two young birds, one following the 

 other, moved upward by feeble hitches and perched or squatted 



