138 MELOSPIZA MELODIA, SONG SPARROW. 



of passage in the Middle States, but Wilsou states that, of the numbers 

 that pass through Pennsylvania, a few remain during the summer. On 

 the coast of North Carolina 1 saw some after May, but I judge these 

 were merely late migrants, not about to breed there. In the same 

 locality I saw others through November, and it is quite possible that 

 some may winter there, as they certainly do in South Carolina, and 

 thence throughout the Southern States to Texas. I have not met with 

 any extralimital quotations, a circumstance confirming the winter resi- 

 dence of the species as just stated. 



The nest of the Swamp Sparrow is usually placed on the ground, iu 

 low, moist places, at the foot of a bunch of rank grass or reeds ; some- 

 times iu a tussock, more rarely off the ground, in a low bush. It is 

 built of various dried grasses, weeds, roots, and other fibrous material, 

 and lined with fine rootlets. The eggs, four or five in number, are 

 usually dull grayish or faintly bluish-white, speckled all over with red- 

 dish-brown and various other shades, the markings sometines tending 

 to aggregate in a wreath about the larger end, sometimes not; often 

 so close as to hide the ground-color altogether. They measure about 

 0.78 by 0.55 iu size. Two, and sometimes three, broods are reared in a 

 season, and fledglings are to be observed through part of August. 



The food and general economy of this species are not peculir, but it 

 has nevertheless its distinctive traits. It is a very abundant bird, but 

 its retiring habits withdraw it from general observation. It is not so 

 decidedly gregarious as some of its allies, and is oftener found skulking 

 alone through rank herbage and tangled undergrowth than in flocks; 

 still, iu the fall, I have found considerable numbers together, about the 

 edges of reedy swamps, sharing the shrubbery with the Song Sparrows 

 aud the reeds with the species of Ammodromus, between which it forms, 

 in one sense, a connecting link. I have also seen it, though more rarely, 

 in open, wet, grassy places. During the vernal migration, at Washing- 

 ton, D. C, I used to look for it iu the undergrowth fringing tiny streams 

 flowing through open woods, and rarely failed to find it, if I looked close 

 enough, in the very heart of such recesses, the skirts of which were 

 full of White-throated Sparrows and other more conspicuous species. 

 I never saw it take a long flight in the open woods ; generally it was 

 seen flitting from bush to bush, just over the ground or water, flirting 

 the tail, aud uttering its peculiar note. Its chirp is remarkably differ- 

 ent from that of any other species, and, with its general redclishness, 

 seems to distinguish it from its associates. The song I have never 

 heard. Nuttall says that occasionally, mounted on the top of a low 

 bush or willow-tree, it chants " a few trilling, rather monotonous, minor 

 notes, resembling, in some measure, the song of the Field Sparrow, and 

 appearing like twe, ttcP tuP tw^ tiv^ tiv twe, and twV twH Hw tw^ twe, uttered 

 in a pleasing aud somewhat varied warble." 



MELOSPIZA MELODIA, (Wils.) Bd. 



Song Sparrow. 



a. melodia. 



(?) Fringilla fasciata, Gm., Syst. Nat. i, 1786, 922. (Very probable.) 



Fringilla melodia, Wils., Am. Orn. ii, 1810, 125, pi. 16, fig. 4.— Bp., Sya. 1828, 108.— 



Aud., Orn. Biog. i, 1831, 126; v, 507 ; pi. 25; Syn. 1839, 120; B. Am. iii, 1841, 



147, pi. 189.— NuTT,, Mau. i, 1832, 486.— Gm., B. L. I. 1844, 121.— Putn., Pr. Ess. 



Inst. 1«56, 211.— TuiPPE, ihid. vi, 1871, 116. 

 Zonotrichia melodia, Bp., List, 1838, 31 ; Cousp. Av. 1850, 478. 

 Melos])iza melodia, Bd., B. N. A. 1858, 477.— Ha yd., Rep. 1()7.— Coues, Key, 1872, 139.— 



B. B. »fc R., N. A. B. ii, 1874, 19, pi. 27, fig. 6 ; also of nearly all late writers. 



