SWAMP SPARROW. 503 



song is, continued till late in the morning, and after sun- 

 set in the evening. This reverberating tone is again 

 somewhat similar to that of the Chipping Sparrow, but 

 far louder and more musical. In the intervals he de- 

 scends into the grassy tussucks and low bushes in quest 

 of his insect food, as well as to repose out of sight ; 

 and, while here, his movements are as silent and secret 

 as those of a mouse. The rice plantations and river 

 swamps are their favorite hibernal resorts in Louisiana, 

 Georgia, and the Carolinas ; here they are very numer- 

 ous, and skulk among the canes, reeds, and rank grass, 

 solicitous of concealment, and always exhibiting their 

 predilection for watery places. In the breeding-season, 

 before the ripening of many seeds, they live much on the 

 insects of the marshes in which they are found, particu- 

 larly the smaller coleopterous kinds, Carahi and Curcu- 

 Hones. 



They form their nests in the ground, often in the shel- 

 ter of some dry tussuck of sedge or other rank grass, in 

 the midst of the watery marsh in which they dwell. 

 Their eggs are 4 or 5, of a dirty white, spotted with red- 

 dish brown. They probably raise 2 or 3 broods in the 

 season, being equally prolific with our other Sparrows. 

 They express extreme solicitude for their young, even 

 after they are fully fledged and able to provide for them- 

 selves ; the young also, in their turn, possess uncommon 

 cunning and agility, running and concealing themselves 

 in the sedge of the wet meadows. They are quite as 

 difficult to catch as field mice, and seldom on these emer- 

 gencies attempt to take wing. We have observed one 

 of these sagacious birds dart from one tussuck to another, 

 and at last dive into the grassy tuft in such a manner, or 

 elude the grasp so well, as seemingly to disappear or 

 burrow into the earth. Their robust legs and ^eei, as 



