488 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 





Grand island, Niagara river, and West Seneca near Buffalo, by James 

 Savage; Irondequoit creek, Monroe county, June 1910, by Fred Gordon. 

 These are the only breeding records before me, which will show conclusively 

 that it is both a local and uncommon summer resident of the State. It 

 arrives from the south in the vicinity of New York City between the 10th 

 and the 20th of May, according to Chapman, and departs between the 

 10th and the 30th of October. Worthington's record of May 17, 1901, 



at Erie, Pa., will indicate that 

 its arrival in western New York 

 is about the same. Merriam's 

 record, October 27, 1877, from 

 Lowville, Lewis county, shows 

 that it departs late in October 

 from the interior of the State. 

 Chapman gives the breeding date 

 for New York City as May 31, 

 which agrees with Clarkson's in 

 Tonawanda swamp. 



Haunts and habits. This 

 wren prefers wet meadows and 

 the borders of marshes, being less 

 confined to the flooded areas than 

 the Long- billed marsh wren, and 

 more secretive and retiring in its 

 habits than that species. It is much more often heard than seen when one 

 invades its coverts. Its clinking alarm notes may be heard all about 

 one when a colony of this species is invaded, its call having been aptly 

 compared to the sound of two pebbles struck together, but rarely may 

 one of the birds be seen, as they are very mouselike in actions and dis- 

 like to appear outside the protecting cover of the grass and sedges, the 

 difficulty of flushing the bird undoubtedly accounting for its apparent 

 rarity in many places where it must be a summer resident. Its song is 



Photo by L. S. Horton 

 Nest of Short-billed marsh wren 



