The Brown Creepers 
the smooth 
tree-trunk, 
were quaking 
like cowards. 
One by one the 
eggs went into 
the open hat, 
and then I felt 
inside,—one, 
two, three, 
four more. 
Taken in the San Jacinto Mis. Photo by the Author ]yj QSt boUfl- 
A TENDER PASSAGE t i f U 1 ! And 
fresh at that. 
As soon as I descended, the late proprietress began 
an elaborate tour of investigation. She inspected the 
nest cavity; she seized bits of nest lining, carried them 
out to the light and sifted them to bits. She entered 
neighboring holes and tested other cavities; but chiefly 
she returned ever and again to the home cavity to peck 
and peck and peck. Time after time she came back, and chip after chip 
she removed as though in hopes to discover some secret panel through 
which her treasures had disappeared. The male bird paid little attention 
to the catastrophe and did not appear to understand its gravity at all. 
Once he came to feed his mate, in the regular way of business, and she 
came out to meet him on a neighboring branch, receiving his present 
with quivering wings and tender twitterings, as though nothing had 
gone wrong. But immediately thereafter the male disappeared and the 
female returned to her fruitless quest. 
A sympathetic Hummer, however, showed a morbid interest in her 
neighbor’s mishap. Several times she fluttered inquiringly in front of the 
ruined house, and once she followed the male off, like an excited gossip 
demanding the news. But Sitta pygmcea answered never a word. He 
had sighted another bug. 
No. 131 
Brown Creeper 
No. 131a Sierra Creeper 
A. O. U. No. 726d. Certhia familiaris zelotes Osgood. 
Synonym.— California Creeper (Ridgway). 
^5 7 
