88 Brewer on the American Brown Creeper. 
Richardson had few if any opportunities to explore regions con- 
genial to this species. It is a well-know r n fact that our Creeper is 
abundant throughout Newfoundland, where the forests have not 
been swept off by fire, as in a large part of the peninsula of Lab- 
rador, as far north as latitude 52°. It is also known to occur in 
Manitoba to very nearly the same parallel of latitude, and in 1850 
I saw in Halifax examples that had been procured in Northeastern 
Labrador. Examples are also collected there by Moravian collectors 
and sent by them to Europe. Inasmuch as there is so little per- 
ceptible specific difference between our Creeper and the Certhia 
familiaris of Europe, there is good reason to believe that the habits 
and distribution are essentially the same, and that the northern dis- 
tribution of both is limited only by the presence or absence of large 
forests. The European bird is known to range as far north as lati- 
tude 63°, both in Norway and Sweden. The specimens received 
from the Moravian settlements in Labrador were from a latitude of 
at least 57°. 
Another point still involved in obscurity, so far as I am aware, 
is one that can hardly fail to be soon solved by the hosts of observ- 
ing explorers in the field. This is to what extent our Creeper 
breeds among wooded mountains south of latitude 42°, and how far 
south it may occur as a common species in the breeding season. 
Up to 1874 I had known of but a single instance of its nesting, and 
that in one of the Grand Menan group of islands. Since then I 
have known of its nesting in Northern New Hampshire, in Maine, 
and, more recently, near Lynn, Mass., and last summer in Taunton, 
Mass. I have no doubt, therefore, that it will be found breeding 
in elevated forests somewhat farther south than any place to which 
as yet it has been traced. 
In “ North American Birds ” it is said to breed in hollow trees, 
in the deserted holes of Woodpeckers, and in decayed stumps and 
branches of trees. This statement is rather legendary than posi- 
tively ascertained, and I am now inclined to somewhat modify this 
opinion, the more so that I learn from Mr. Dresser that the Euro- 
pean C. familiaris usually places its nest between the detached 
bark and the trunk of a large tree. This exactly describes the situ- 
ation of the nest found in Grand Menan, and of six or seven other 
nests since identified and described to me. All of these nests have 
been in just such situations and in no other. Instead of this being 
exceptional, it is probable that this is our Creeper’s most usual 
