6382 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
before it reaches the main limbs and it may then continue its course upward, 
but more often it takes flight and passes directly to the foot of some neigh- 
boring tree to repeat the performance. More rarely still it may be seen 
creeping along a large branch of some forest tree, or stationary for several 
seconds at some productive spot on a dead branch. It is so like the brown 
bark on which it spends most of its life that it is not likely to be seen unless 
specially looked for. 
Its usual call-note is a high-pitched “seet, seet, seet, seet,’’ occasionally 
uttered singly, but more often repeated two, three, or more times. 
During migration the bird moves in little squads of three to a dozen, 
sometimes associated with warblers, vireos and other birds, but in winter 
it is almost invariably with a troup of Chickadees, Nuthatches, Kinglets, 
and Downy Woodpeckers, and these apparently keep together nearly all 
day. The food gleaned from the crevices of bark consists very largely 
of insect eggs and the dormant larve and pupee of insects, and so far as 
we know the bird takes no vegetable food whatever. That it is decidedly 
beneficial is usually assumed and probably with safety, since the awl-like 
beak enables it to reach into crevices which are inaccessible to any other 
bird except possibly to the woodpeckers after some digging. 
The Creeper doubtless nests occasionally in every county in the state, 
but in such small numbers in the southern counties that it has quite generally 
escaped detection. According to Dr. Gibbs Mr. W. A. Gunn observed 
a pair of these birds building a nest in Ottawa county May 19, 1879. “It 
was placed about forty feet from the ground, under the bark of a dead 
pine at the edge of a pinery. I went to the spot and found the nest quite 
inaccessible.’ Leon J. Cole states that a nest was found near Grand 
Rapids by Mr. Owen Durfee, but was broken up. Several other observers 
record the presence of the bird in summer in the lower counties of the 
state, but we know of no other nest being found. North of the Saginaw- 
Grand Valley the bird is resident through the summer in considerable 
numbers, and is reported as nesting commonly in all suitable places. Miss 
Flora L. Mowbray states that it is common and nests at Marquette, and 
it is also reported as breeding at Ludington, Mason county, by Miss Ida 
McClatchie. The writer found it fairly common on Beaver Island, Lake 
Michigan, in July 1904, and he also found it in Mackinac, Alger and 
Chippewa counties in 1903. 
The nest seems to be placed invariably beneath a partly loosened sheet 
of bark which is still attached firmly to the tree, and which shelters it 
from the weather as well as from observation. In the narrow space be- 
tween the bark and the tree the bird constructs a substantial but somewhat 
irregular nest of twigs and shreds of bark of various kinds, and lays four 
to six eggs, which are white or creamy white, speckled chiefly at the larger 
end with reddish brown. They average .60 by .48 inches. 
Few have heard the Creeper’s song, the call-notes already described 
being the only ones usually heard. Mr. Brewster, however, states that 
during the nesting season it is a frequent singer and its voice ‘though 
one of the sweetest that ever rises in the thickets of northern forests, 
is never a very conspicuous song. This is due to the fact that the song 
is short and by no means powerful, but its tones are so exquisitely pure 
and tender that I have never heard it without a desire to linger in the 
vicinity until it has been many times repeated. It consists of a bar of 
four notes, the first of moderate pitch, the second lower and less emphatic, 
the third rising again, and the last abruptly falling, but dying away in an 
