rAuk 



60 Tyler, Brown Creeper in Massachusetts. [j^ 



of East Lexington who kindly permits me to add that the birds 

 built two more nests and that in one of these the female laid eggs 

 which were destroyed by a thunder storm early in July. 



Summary of details of nests. 



The history of these two pairs of Creepers suggests a reason for 

 their breeding so far south of their normal range and also a cause 

 of the failure of one pair to raise their young. 



Breeding Brown Creepers are rare in eastern Massachusetts; 

 they have been reported here in summer not more than a dozen 

 times in the last thirty-five years. For the most part, the nests 

 were built in white cedar or red maple trees standing in dense wet 

 swamps.^ One nest was found in a dead white pine ^ and another 

 in a pitch pine^, both surrounded by woodland. It is to be noted 

 that these former Massachusetts nests were placed in situations not 

 very dissimilar from those on the birds' regular breeding ground in 

 northern New England.^ 



The sites, surrounded by trees, were well protected from the 

 wind and the nests themselves were sheltered by strong or tenacious 

 bark. Very different conditions prevailed in the Concord nest site 

 and in all the five in Lexington. The six nest trees stood either 

 in a clearing or in an open wood, and were exposed to the wind to 

 a greater or less extent. The nests were built in trees, long dead, 

 with brittle or frail bark, — black or white oak, — trees with which 

 the Creeper can have had little experience in the Canadian Zone. 

 That the Concord nest withstood the strain of the wind and of the 



1 Kennard, P. H., & McKechnie, F. B., Auk, XXII. 183-193. 



Chadbourne. A. P., Auk, XXII, 179-183. 

 > Kennard, F. H., & McKechnie, P. B., op. cit. 

 » Townsend, C. W.. Birds of Essex County, 1905, p. 307. 

 * Brewster. W.. Bull.. N. O. C. IV. 199-209. 



