Brewster on the American Brown Creeper. 201 
insect life, forms an attraction too powerful to be overlooked. The 
place just described proved to be no exception to this rule. The 
spruce tops were filled with busy flitting Warblers of various spe- 
cies, some of them migratory individuals resting for a few hours 
before resuming their northw T ard journey ; others already mated, 
and established for the brief season of reproduction so near at hand. 
Among the stubs, Woodpeckers were swinging from trunk to trunk, 
or entering their neatly rounded holes with food for their mates or 
young. From a dead branch that overhung the thicket beneath, a 
Water Thrush (Siurus ncevius ) uttered his gushing warble, while 
at intervals, in the cool depths of the forest on the mountain side, 
arose the exquisite liquid notes of a Winter Wren. Such w r ere a 
few of the more prominent actors in the varied scene. 
Among the other voices I shortly detected the sweet wild song 
of the Brown Creeper, and, looking more carefully, spied a pair of 
these industrious little gleaners winding their way up the trunk of 
a neighboring tree. Although I watched them closely, the female 
soon after in some way eluded my sight and mysteriously disap- 
peared, but the niale remained in the immediate vicinity, singing 
at frequent intervals. Being convinced that they must have a nest 
somewhere near, I instituted a careful search among the dead trees 
that stood around, and at length detected a scale of loose bark, 
within which was crammed a suspicious-looking mass of twigs and 
other rubbish. A vigorous rapping upon the base of the trunk 
producing no effect, I climbed to the spot and was about to tear 
off the bark, when the frightened Creeper darted out within a few 
inches of my face, and the next moment I looked in upon the eggs. 
The tree selected was a tall dead fir, that stood in the shallow 
water just outside the edge of the living forest, but surrounded by 
numbers of its equally unfortunate companions. Originally killed 
by inundation, its branches had long ago yielded to the fury of the 
winter storms, and the various destroying agents of time had 
stripped off the greater part of the bark until only a few persistent 
scales remained to chequer the otherwise smooth, mast-like stem. 
One of these, in process of detachment, had started away from the 
trunk below, while its upper edges still retained a comparatively 
firm hold, and within the space thus formed the cunning little archi- 
tect had constructed her nest. The whole width of the opening 
had first been filled with a mass of tough but slender twigs (many 
of them at least six inches in length), and upon this foundation the 
