96 
BIRDS OF DURHAM AND VICINITY. 
Family CERTHIID.E. 
Certhia familiaris americana.. Brown Creeper. 726. 
Although I should not be at all surprised to hear of a creeper's nest 
in the college pines, where they usually remain in spring lonojer than 
anywhere else about here, such would be an exceptional case, for, as a 
rule, Creepers are not seen after the first week in May. The earliest 
fall record that I have is September 16. After the weather becomes 
cold they join that well known band of Chickadees, Nuthatches, Wood- 
peckers, and Kinglets, which help so much to keep up the spirits of 
bird lovers during the winter. It is difficult to imagine anything in 
feathers more subdued than a Creeper. Its color, its size, its mode 
of search for food, and its call note are all calculated to avoid notice. 
It is usual to find two or three moving along in the same company, 
yet without appearing to pa\ any particular attention to one another. 
But while ordinarily sober in all things they are sometimes moder- 
ately enlivened. I well remember a bright February morning when four 
of them, assembled in a little oak grove, entertained me with songs 
and a mild game of hide and seek, in which two birds took opposite 
sides of the same tree, and went round and round, each out of the 
other's sight. The song was of the sanie quality as the familiar call 
note, but it v.as louder and connected into almost a warble, quite a 
pleasing elTort. The Creeper's progress depends on its legs quite as 
much as on its wings, being on general principles not unlike that of 
flying squirrels. Both begin at the base of a tree, ascend it, dart oft" 
obliquely to the base of another tree, and repeat the process indef- 
initely. 
Family FARID.-E. 
Sitta carolinensis. White-breasted Nuthatch. 727. 
The White-breasted Nuthatch is a resident throughout the year. 
In winter there is more or less of an influx from the north, and during 
that season they are more evenly distributed than in summer. They 
are not confined to the woods, but visit the village fruit and shade 
trees as well, and not infrequently nest there. A pair built in an 
a})ple tree near the Durham post-office in 1898, so near a path that 
people passed within two feet of the nest many times a day. I have 
also known an old nuthatch to rear her young in a hole at the end of 
a ridge-pole of a barn. The common nesting site is a decayed stub 
or large branch, which is easily drilled. 
