66 LAND-BIRDS. 



is repeated more deliberately and less querulously in the breed- 

 ing-season than at other times ; a fact which I also have 

 noticed. It is, however, varied considerably in pitch at all 

 times of the year. 



6. CERTHinXE. Creepers. (See 4.) 

 I. CERTHIA. 



A. FAMILIARIS AMERICANA. Brown Creeper. In eastern 

 Massachusetts, very rare in summer, but common in winter.* 



a. About 5J inches long. Bill, slender and decurved ; tail- 

 feathers, rigid and acuminate (as in other Certhiince). Below, 

 white. Tail, unmarkedo Other upper parts, curiously and 

 finely marked with several browns and whitish. 



b. Wilson says that " the Brown Creeper builds his nest 

 in the hollow trunk or branch of a tree, where the tree has 

 been shivered, or a limb broken off, or where squirrels or 

 Woodpeckers have wrought out an entrance, for nature has not 

 provided him with the means of excavating one for himself." 

 Mr. Gregg (in a " Catalogue of the Birds of Chemung County, 

 New York ") says that " the nest of this species is built of dry 

 twigs attached to the sides of some perpendicular object " ; and 

 that he " discovered one on the attic of a deserted log house ; 

 the nest rested upon the inner projection of the gable clap- 

 board, and was cemented together with a gummy or gelatinous 

 substance." The only nest that I have found in the neighbor- 

 hood of Boston was a few feet from the ground, placed in the 

 cavity formed by the rending of a tree by lightning. The 

 eggs, which were fresh on the twentieth day of May, were 

 grayish white, speckled with reddish brown, chiefly at the 

 larger end, and measured about .60 X .50 of an inch. A nest 

 containing young, found in a New Hampshire forest, was much 

 like one found " in a large elm in Court Square, Springfield, 

 about ten feet from the ground, and built behind a strip of 



* In southern New England the its normal summer range is limited very 

 Brown Creeper is a very common spring strictly to the Canadian fauna. It 

 and autumn migrant and a not uncom- breeds regularly on Mount Graylock, 

 mon winter resident. Although it has in western Massachusetts, and through- 

 been twice found nesting in eastern out the spruce forests of northern New 

 Massachusetts and once at Springfield, England. W. B. 



