266 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



L. McI, Terrill (1922), writing of the Montreal district, says: "In 

 this locality the Short-billed Marsh Wren has a decided preference 

 for sphagnum bogs — not so much the bog proper as the firmer ground 

 about the bog margins, where there is a certain amount of free surface 

 water and a fairly heavy growth of grasses and sedges. Here the silky 

 tassels of the cotton-grass waving above the lesser growth, are a famil- 

 iar sight and one is more apt to find swamp laurel in greater abundance 

 than bushes of Labrador Tea, which appears to thrive better in the 

 yielding sphagnum. Clumps of alders are also commonly found with 

 an occasional tamarack sapling and sometimes beds of cattails, while 

 often there is a thicket of poplars and birches in the background." 



Dr. Lawrence H. Walkinshaw (1935) says that in Michigan "the 

 favorite habitat of the Short-billed Marsh Wren is not among the 

 large groups of cattails with several feet of standing water, but rather 

 in the higher part of the marshes, in the intermediate portion between 

 the bordering meadow and the deepest part of the swamp itself. There 

 is generally very little and often no water at all where they nest." He 

 says that "these marshes are .the favorite habitat for the sandhill crane 



* * *, Yellow Rail * * *, Greater Prairie Chicken * * *, 

 Savannah Sparrow * * *^ Henslow's Sparrow * * *^ Leconte's 

 Sparrow * * *, Swamp Sparrow * * *^ j^j^(j Song Sparrow 



* * *." Among the plants growing in the marsh, he lists royal, 

 sensitive, and marsh ferns, cattails, wood bulrush, showy ladyslipper, 

 calopogon, some of the smaller willows, fringed and closed gentians, 

 climbing wild cucumber, tall ironweed, joepyeweed, blue vervain, Can- 

 ada goldenrod, beggarticks, nodding bur-marigold. New England 

 aster. Yellow dock, and turtlehead. "In the early part of the summer 

 grasses and sedges predominate, and later the appearance of the 

 marsh takes on the gay colors, the yellows and blues, of the goldenrods, 

 asters, and vervains." 



Wendell Taber tells me that in a marsh in New Hampshire, at an 

 elevation of 1,020 feet, he has found this wren in June for four sea- 

 sons in succession; he usually hears olive-sided and alder flycatchers 

 and once a winter wren singing while he was listening to the marsh 

 wren. 



The short-billed marsh wren is widely distributed over the cen- 

 tral and eastern parts of southern Canada and a large part of the 

 northern half of the United States. But it does not seem to be evenly 

 distributed and seems to be rare or unknown in many portions of this 

 wide range. It is common only where it can find suitable marshes; 

 some of these marshes may contain only one or two pairs, while 

 others may support populous colonies. Perhaps it is commoner in 

 many places than is generally supposed, because of its small size and 

 shy, retiring habits. Furthermore, the marshes where it lives are 

 not as carefully explored by bird lovers as some other places. 



