24 The OttAwa Naturalist. [April 



The variation in the colors and marking^s of eggs is very 

 great, some resembling those of the Savanna sparrow, others with 

 a lighter ground and larger blotches resemble those of the vesper 

 sparrow, while one set has very small spots and is of a general 

 slaty hue, resembling the eggs of the horned lark, and yet another 

 closely resembles some sets of the bobolink. The nest is built in 

 a similar manner to that of the Savanna sparrow, an excavation 

 of nearly an inch being made among long, fallen grass of last 

 year's growth, and the nest is seated in this excavation and built 

 up about two inches above the ground level. It is well concealed, 

 and would be difficult to find were it not that the bird is very par- 

 ticular as to the proper condition of grass, and as this condition 

 is rather unusual, one's search is reduced to a trifle. Towards the 

 eastern end of the island where the crowberry, Empetrum nigrum 

 grows abundantly, a patch of it is often selected as a nesting site, 

 and the task of discovery becomes more difficult. 



The song resembles very closely that of our species, but the 

 ending, instead of being a grasshopper-like buzz, as with us, is 

 aptly described by Dr. D wight as " pre-e-e-a." Reading these 

 letters in a book conveyed no very definite idea of the sound to my 

 mind, but when I heard it I realized that not only was the descrip- 

 tion very accurate, but that the sound was almost exactly the same 

 as the call of the tern, which, doubtless, the bird has acquired by 

 dint of hearing this cry thousands of times each day, all summer 

 long. That such changes do take place was proved to me some 

 years ago by hearing a junco that lived in a region of white- 

 throated sparrows, render his song, not a plain series of "chips," 

 as usual, but " chip-chip-chip. ...chip-chip-chip," etc., in triplets, 

 exactly as the white-throat does. 



While the Ipswich sparrows are found during the migration 

 as far south as the Carolinas, it is a remarkable fact that a fair 

 proportion of them reside on Sable Island all winter, the number 

 remaining being usually estimated at about one-fifth of the total. 

 During severe weather many of these are sometimes picked up 

 exhausted and chilled, and are then sheltered and fed till a better 

 season arrives. And not only are the birds themselves thus cared 

 for, but the foxes, which are the chief enemies of this and other 

 birds on Sable Island, are unmercifully pursued at every oppor- 



