i9i4 J Tyler, Brown Creeper in Massachusetts. 61 



birds' continual passage in and out was due in large measure, not 

 to the strength of the bark, but to the fortuitous circumstance that 

 the loosened strip was adherent along the whole of one side to the 

 firm bark of the trunk. This nest tree was, moreover, larger and in 

 a more sheltered situation than any of the others. 



For many years past, there have been few dead trees in eastern 

 Massachusetts except in such remote localities as the almost 

 inaccessible swamps where Messrs. Kennard and McKechnie found 

 their Brown Creepers breeding. Of late years, however, this 

 region about Boston, Mass., has been the very center of the gypsy 

 and brown-tail moth invasion with the result that in many pieces 

 of woodland the trees, after being stripped year after year by the 

 larvre, have been decimated. The trees which die first, and in the 

 greatest number, are the oaks, — the favorite of the gypsy moth. 



This wholesale killing of the oaks has opened up the woodland 

 in two ways, — primarily through the loss of the foliage of the trees 

 which have been killed and secondarily (as in the case of the clearing 

 in Lexington) through the extensive cutting off of living trees by 

 the owners of infested regions to save their threatened property. 

 The result is that there are at the present time in eastern Massa- 

 chusetts hundreds of acres of devastated woodland abounding in 

 sites of suitable size for Brown Creepers' nests. Many of the sites 

 are unfavorable for nesting, however, in that they are exposed to 

 the full force of the wind and sheltered insufficiently by fragile oak 

 bark. 



That the two pairs of Brown Creepers noted in the present paper 

 were the only ones which passed the summer in this vicinity is 

 highly improbable: the increase in the number of breeding sites, 

 unfavorable though many of them are, has no doubt induced many 

 other Creepers to tarry in their northward spring migration and to 

 attempt to breed here. That few have been discovered is not sur- 

 prising for, as has been emphasized above, the Creepers, in the 

 main, stay very near their nesting ground and often for long periods 

 keep nearly silent. 



It is probable, indeed, that the Brown Creeper is, for the time 

 being, a regular summer resident, if no naore than a rare one, in 

 eastern Massachusetts and that the species will be found breeding 

 here as long as the moths continue to kill the trees. 



