124 



BROWN CREEPER. 



in age. I found, however, a remarkable and very striking difler- 

 ence 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 tliey 

 had their nest. The male of this pair had the bill of the same ex- 

 traordinary 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 na- 

 turally 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 

 positively determine, tho 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 en- 

 trance, for nature has not provided him with the means of exca- 

 vating one for himself. I have known the female begin to lay by 

 the seventeenth 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 of 

 the head is of a deep brownish black; the back brown, and both 

 streaked with white, the plumage of the latter being of a loose tex- 

 ture with its filaments not adhering; the white is in the center of 

 every feather, and is skirted with brown; lower part of the back, 

 rump and tail-coverts rusty brown, the last minutely tipt with 



