BROWN CREEPER. 
197 
111 him, if you are alone, is, as soon as lie 
and disappears behind the trunk, take your 
oiif *^ehind an adjoining one, and keep a sharp look- 
. tvveuty or thirty feet up the body of tlie tree he is 
— lor he generally mounts very regularly to a 
lilJ^'^lorable height, examining the whole way as he 
Viy'ioes. In a minute or two, hearing all still, he 
■Sake his appearance on one side or other of the 
y “id give you an opportunity of observing him. 
Ij.^bese birds are distributed over the whole United 
«tcs • 
S 
but are most numerous iii the western and 
f(,, States, and particularly so in the dejith of the 
II, and in tracts of large timbered woods, where 
tl, y Visually breed ; visiting the thicker settled parts of 
i,, Country ill fall and winter. They are more abundant 
ilia '* ""oods of the lower district of New Jersey 
Itie" Pennsylvania, and are frequently found among 
0 ,,® pines. Though their customary food appears to 
of those insects, known by the general name of 
yet 1 have frequently found in their stomachs the 
1 ^® pi“® I''®®’ fragments of a species of 
that vegetates in old wood, with generally a 
at|y’jP'’oportion of gravel. There seems to be scarcely 
•bal "‘“Bfeace between the colours and markings of the 
■' ® and female. 
>n, 
In the month of March, I opened 
I 5 . of these birds, among whom were several females, 
t^PPoared by the clusters of minute eggs with which 
Ovaries were filled, and also several well marked 
ji|,,®*5 and, on the most careful comparison of their 
H 
M., 
1 could find little or no difference ; the colours. 
eed; 
an i 
t() „ ’n others ; but sometimes this superiority belonged 
enq ’''ble, sometimes to a female, and appeared to be 
a y Owing to difference in a^e. I found, however, 
'aiUp and very striking difference in their sizes; 
tHp_^,l^’ore considerably larger, and had the bill, at least, 
t longer and stronger than the others, and these 
?r®ly found to be males. I also received two of 
ial{p birds from the country bordering on the Cayuga 
‘ lo New York State, from a person who killed 
M'ere rather more vivid and intense in some 
