SOUTHERN SWAMP SPARROW 1477 



adopts this perch as its habitual singing place. While singing the 

 bird spreads its tail noticeably. G. M. Sutton writes me that he 

 once observed a male chasing a female with a dry grass-blade in her 

 bill. 



Sutton (1928) based the following generalized description on some 

 66 nests he found in the Pj^matuning Swamp area of Pennsylvania: 



Nests were almost never placed on the ground, but were built between the 

 cat-tail stalks, or upon the bent-down clumps of stalks and leaves, and were 

 often completely hidden from above by the broad, dead leaf-blades. Entrances 

 to the nests were almost always from the side, and rarely from above. The 

 material of the lining varied but little. It was always of fine grasses, and not 

 varied with plant-fiber, roots, or hair, as might have been expected. The material 

 forming the foundations of the nests was often coarse and bulky, and some of the 

 structures were huge, sprawling affairs. Nests were often built directly above 

 the water, where the depth varied from six to twenty-four inches, and were usually 

 built about a foot or more above the surface. 



In the less alkaline swamps I have found many nests built in green 

 sedge tussocks of Carex. The broad bushy flood-plain along the 

 meandering Quabog River in central Massachusetts, where literally 

 thousands of swamp sparrows breed, is the only place I have found 

 them nesting consistently in bushes, and usually at heights reached 

 only by standing in a boat. 



Though the foundation is occasionally huge and sprawling, the nest 

 proper is usually smaller than that of the song sparrow, being on the 

 average 4.0 inches in outside diameter, with the inside cup 2.4 inches 

 across and 1.5 inches deep. All those I have found have had the 

 foundation and the thick outer cup built entirely of tightly woven 

 coarse dead marsh "grasses," and the inner cup of fine round grass 

 stems, often still showing green. Isaac E. Hess (1910) states that 

 each of four nests he found in Illinois "had an appendage or handle 

 constructed of grass stems protruding from one side about three 

 inches." I also have noticed this characteristic loose tag on many 

 nests. The entrance to the nest is characteristically from the side. 

 The parents circled a Chardoneret banding trap I placed over a nest 

 of fledglings in frustration for an hour until I rigged an inclined stick 

 from a nearby perch that led them to the top entrance. 



P. L. Hatch (1892) writes that the nest is "jointly built" by the 

 pair, but this is probably an uncritical observation. Most of the 

 evidence suggests that, as in most of the closely related sparrows, 

 nest building in the swamp sparrow is entirely or almost entirely by 

 the female. 



Eggs. — (The data refer to the species as a whole.) The swamp 

 sparrow lays from 3 to 6, usually 4 or 5 ovate and slightly glossy eggs. 

 The ground color of freshly laid eggs is usually "pale Niagara green," 

 but this pales out to a greenish-white upon exposure. They are 



