BROWN CREEPER. l2 * 



ovaries were filled, and also several well-marked males ; and, 

 on the most careful comparison of their plumage, I could find 

 little or no difference; the colours, indeed, were rather more 

 vivid and intense in some than in others ; but sometimes this 

 superiority belonged to a male, sometimes to a female, and 

 appeared to be entirely owing to difference in age. I found, 

 however, a remarkable and very striking difference in their 

 sizes ; some were considerably larger, and had the bill at 

 least one-third longer and stronger than the others, and these 

 I uniformly found to be males. I also received two of these 

 birds from the country bordering on the Cayuga Lake, in 

 New York State, from a person who killed them from the tree 

 in which they had their nest. The male of this pair had the 

 bill of the same extraordinary size with several others I had 

 examined before ; the plumage in every respect the same. 

 Other males, indeed, were found at the same time, of the 

 usual size. Whether this be only an accidental variety, or 

 whether the male, when full-grown, be naturally so much 

 larger than the female (as is the case with many birds), and 

 takes several years in arriving at his full size, I cannot posi- 

 tively determine, though I think the latter most probable. 



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. I have known the 

 female begin to lay by the 17th of April. The eggs are 

 usually seven, of a dull cinereous, marked with small dots of 

 reddish yellow, and streaks of dark brown. The young come 

 forth with great caution, creeping about long before they 

 venture on wing. From the early season at which they begin 

 to build, I have no doubts of their raising two broods during 

 summer, as I have seen the old ones entering holes late in 

 July. 



The length of this bird is five inches, and nearly seven from 

 the extremity of one wing to that of the other ; the upper part 



