Brewster on the American Brown Creeper. 205 
Were it not for Professor Aughey’s testimony we might fairly be in- 
clined to suspect that all our earlier accounts of this Creeper’s nesting 
were either founded upon hearsay or were purely fictitious. But we 
have this gentleman’s satisfactory assurance that in Nebraska the 
Creeper does sometimes nest in holes in trees. Being desirous of ob- 
taining further particulars regarding the nest mentioned by him in his 
paper on “ The Nature of the Food of the Birds of Nebraska,” and 
referred to by Dr. Brewer in the April Bulletin, I wrote to Professor 
Aughey on the subject, and the following is an extract from his very 
courteous reply : “In reference to Certhia familiaris, it is certain 
that in Nebraska, where its favorite position for nesting under scales 
of loose bark is in some localities difficult to obtain, it makes a nest 
in knot-holes. I have found two other nests in such places, — one in 
June, 1877, between Bellevue and Omaha, on the Missouri Bluff’s, in 
a box-elder tree ; another in June of the present season on Middle 
Creek, four miles from Lincoln, also in a box-elder. I have also 
found several in the ordinary positions where old cottonwoods or 
elms abounded. It is therefore my conviction that this method of 
nesting in knot-holes was inaugurated because of the scarcity of the 
ordinary positions. I could not find any tree near by where a nest- 
ing-place under bark could have been obtained in these instances of 
nesting in knot-holes.” 
Reasoning upon the analogy furnished by the above facts, it seems 
not impossible that Eastern nests also may occasionally occur in 
holes, but in the present state of our definite knowledge on the sub- 
ject, it is perhaps idle to speculate on a question which can only be 
settled by future investigations. It is, however, certainly not too 
much to say that in the regions where it is best known, the Creeper 
habitually nests behind bark-scales, and prefers them to all other 
situations. 
I should be doing injustice to my subject were I to close the 
present article without touching upon the breeding habits of the 
birds, the more especially as very little concerning them seems to 
have been previously written. Of the nests taken during the past 
season only one was in process of construction when found. The 
female was putting in the lining, and the work was so vigorously 
pushed that by the next morning the whole was completed and the 
first egg laid. Her rambles in search of material were limited to 
the immediate vicinity, and rarely extended beyond the distance of 
a few rods. Winding her way up some crumbling spruce or fir, she 
