A queer 
pair of 
Cedar Birds 
arrive 
King Bird* s 
rxe st in 
up right 
"^jrk 
\ ?"k$ 
A pair of Creepers (Mniotilta varia) have spent the 
greater part of yesterday and to-day in or beneath the small 
black oak which stands at the south-east corner of the cabin. 
The female is on the ground much of the time, hopping about 
like a Sparrow, apparently feeding but confining her atten¬ 
tion to a few square feet of turf over which she has worked 
back and forth most persistently. She is absurdly tame, 
allowing me to get within a yard or less. Once I nearly stepped 
on her before she flew. She and her mate call to each other 
every half minute or less, uttering a low chip curiously 
like that of Certhia jj' . What attrac¬ 
tion this qoot furnishes, I cannot imagine. 
(As I am writing this -- May 23 — the female Creeper 
has just alighted on the side of the cabin and is climbing 
up the logs that form the wall, evidently looking for insects. 
How I hear her hopping about on the tin roof over my head. 
Ceda.r Birds appeared near the cabin to-day (22nd) — 
a pair of them, sitting in the tops of blossoming young 
oaks and launching out after flying insects. They are the 
first that I have seen in Concord this year. / 
. 
The King Birds that began building on Honeysuckle 
Island May 16 have finished their nest. I examined it this 
evening and found lining and all complete. It is curiously 
placed in a stout upright fork of a large willow about 4 
feet above the water in the center of a cluster of upright 
stems at least 10 feet belo?/ the foliage twigs. The stems 
at the forj\ are as large as my wrist. A Robin might have 
chosen just such a site. 
55 
