1902] Saunders Birds of Sable Island, N.S. 23 



the night, when the wind permits, one can hear an occasional call, 

 and in the day time I do not suppose that one could locate himself 

 in so remote a spot that he would hear their calls as seldom as 

 every half minute, and when one visits a nesting ground the other 

 extreme is reached and it is often impossible to converse with one's 

 companion except by great exertion. 



The Ispwich sparrow, which was the chief attraction to me 

 on Sable Island, is an insular race of the Savanna sparrow of 

 eastern North America. In the struggle for existence for thousands 

 of years on this bleak little islet, the bird has become considerably 

 larger and much paler than the continental form. The increase 

 in length is about 13mm., or 8 per cent. The breeding ground 

 of this bird was for many years unknown, and not until 1894 ^^^ 

 the bird fully studied and written upon. Previous to that time it 

 was known as a migrant from Georgia to Maine and Nova Scotia, 

 and as a straggler to Newfoundland, but it then disappeared from 

 sight, though it was vainly hunted in the breeding season on 

 Prince Edward and Cape Breton islands and in Newfoundland. 

 At last a few shrewd guessers surmised that it must breed on 

 Sable Island, and finally a skin sent from there in summer settled 

 the matter, but its summer history was not known until Dr. 

 Jonathan Dwight, )un., of New York, braved the inconveniences 

 of the passage to the island, and spent three happy weeks there 

 in May and June, studying the summer habits, song, etc., of this 

 interesting species. Shortly afterwards he published a complete 

 and very interesting monograph of this sparrow, including also 

 an account of the history, climate and other features of the island, 

 thus giving to the world the details that had so long been wanting. 



I was far more favored in my visit than he, as the season 

 was more advanced, and the weather brighter and more favorable 

 and I found that the intervening period of time had been auspi- 

 cious for the sparrows, as they were much more abundant than 

 he represented them to be in 1894. I found many nests, most of 

 them being incomplete, but in seven instances I was able to take 

 sets of eggs, four containing 5 eggs, and the remaining three 4, 

 showing a marked difference from the Savanna sparrow, which 

 almost invariably lays 4 eggs in this locality. /C^^ ^Z '^ 



