J 10 BROWN TREE-CREEPER. 



bird was really asleep, or wished to elude lis, is more than I can affirm, 

 although I am inclined toward the latter supposition, because toward night 

 it retires to a hole, where frequently as many as a whole brood repose 

 together, as I have on several occasions witnessed. 



When on the move, the Brown Creeper emits at short intervals a sharp, 

 quick, rather grating note, peculiar to itself, and by which you may, if 

 acquainted with it, discover from a distance of more than sixty yards, in 

 calm weather, where it is. Yet, after all, it requires some time, and a good 

 eye, to perceive it, if on one of the upper branches of a tall tree. The name 

 of "Gleaner," applied to this bird, is, in my opinion, very inappropriate; 

 for instead of its following the different tribes of small Woodpeckers, or 

 even Nuthatches, which, however, are at times found in company with it, I 

 have seen our little hunter travel over every part of a large and tall tree, 

 and afterwards remove to another, before the Woodpecker had hammered 

 its way to a grub, which it knew to be under the bark; and all the activity 

 of our Nuthatches does not perhaps surpass that of the present species. Yet 

 they all pursue their avocations at the same time, and now and then on the 

 same trees, although this is by no means a constant habit with them. 



Wilson was of opinion that the Brown Creeper moves "rapidly and 

 uniformly along, with his tail bent to the tree, and not in the hopping 

 manner of the Woodpecker;" but I must differ from him, for the bird at 

 each move actually hops, assisted by the pressure of its elastic tail, which 

 indeed is the case with all our Woodpeckers, whether on the upper or the 

 lower surface of a branch. This may be easily seen on placing a Brown 

 Creeper in a cage containing a piece of a branch covered with scaly bark. 



This bird breeds in the hole of a tree, giving a marked preference to such 

 as are small and rounded at the entrance. For this reason, perhaps, it often 

 takes possession of the old and abandoned nests of our smaller Woodpeckers 

 and Squirrels; but it is careless as to the height of the situation above the 

 ground, for I have found its nest in a hole in a broken stump which I could 

 reach with my hand, although I could not examine it on account of the hard- 

 ness of the wood. All the nests which I have seen were loosely formed of 

 grasses and lichens of various sorts, and warmly lined with feathers, among 

 which I in one instance found some from the abdomen of Tetrao Umbellus. 

 The eggs are from six to eight, but in some instances I have found only five, 

 when I have supposed them to belong to a second brood. They measure 

 five-eighths and three-fourths of an inch in length, four and a quarter eighths 

 in their greatest breadth. Their ground-colour is white, with a yellowish 

 tint, irregularly marked with red and purplish spots and dots, which are 

 larger and more crowded toward the broad end, leaving a space at its apex 

 nearly free, as is also the case with that of the narrow end; there are small 



