1908] G@rinnell.—Biota of the San Bernardino Mountains. 121 
once at Bear lake, July 31, and on the north side of Gold moun- 
tain August 26. 
A nest was found near the confluence of the South Fork and 
the Santa Ana on June 26, 1905. It was only three feet above 
the ground behind a piece of loosened bark of a live Jeffrey pine. 
The nest was fitted into the narrow erevice and was composed 
basally of cedar bark and internally of very fine shreds of the 
inner bark of a dead willow, this being the same material that 
was found in nests of the wood pewee, gray flycatcher, and lazuli 
bunting. The nest held six half-fledged young. While we were 
there one of the parents came with a large white miller. The 
bird lit on the base of an adjoining tree, then flew to the base of 
the nest tree and crept up to the nest aperture. 
It was in the incense cedars that the majority of creepers’ 
nests were found. While the Sierra creepers themselves were 
most often seen and heard high above, scaling the massive trunks 
of the huge firs, pines, and cedars, yet their nests ranged not 
higher than twenty feet above the ground. Myself and com- 
panions examined fully thirty nests, easily discovered after we 
onee learned how to find them, and of these I should judge the 
average height to have been six feet. In other words, the major- 
ity could be at least touched by the hand as we stood on the 
eround. One nest, as noted above, was only three feet from the 
eround. 
Although the majority of nests found were on eedar trunks, 
one was on a Jeffrey pine, and at least five were on silver firs. 
In the latter cases the trees were dead and rotting, for it was 
only on dead trees that the bark had become loosened and sep- 
arated enough from the trunk to afford the narrow sheltered 
places sought by the creepers for nesting sites. But the huge 
living cedar trunks furnished the ideal situations. For the bark 
on these is longitudinally ridged and fibrous, and it frequently 
becomes split into inner and outer layers, the latter hanging in 
broad loose strips. The narrow spaces behind these necessitate 
a very compressed style of nest. A typical nest closely studied 
by me may be deseribed as follows: The material employed ex- 
ternally was cedar bark strips one-eighth to one-half inch in 
width. This material had been deposited behind the loosened 
