248 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 

 TELMATODYTES PALUSTRIS ILIACUS Ridgrway 

 PRAIRIE MARSH WREN 

 Plates 45, 46 



HABITS 



The old familiar type name, long-billed marsh wren {T. f. palus- 

 fris), has been restricted to the wrens of this species living on the 

 Atlantic slope from Khode Island to Virginia, and the birds of in- 

 terior New England and the middle west are now known by the above 

 names. Such are the vagaries of name-shifting that our old friend of 

 the Massachusetts marshes is now called the "prairie" marsh wren, 

 though hundreds of miles away from the nearest prairies ! In describ- 

 ing this race, Mr. Bangs ( 1902) writes : 



At present there are confused under the name Cistothorus palustris (Wilson) 

 two quite distinct birds ; one, true C. palustris, breeding in the salt and brackish 

 marshes of the Atlantic coast from Connecticut southward ; the other in- 

 habiting the inland fresh-water marshes and extending north to Massachusetts, 

 Ontario and southern Manitoba. The former, a small bird, has the chin, throat 

 and belly pure white and the breast is' usually white also, though sometimes 

 faintly clouded with pale brownish, with the rump, upper tail-coverts and scapu- 

 lars dusky brown. The latter is a decidedly larger form, In which the chin, 

 throat and belly are buffy or brownish white, the breast much more distinctly 

 clouded with brownish and the rump, upper tail-coverts and scapulars reddish 

 brown. 



Wilson's plate shows a decidedly white-breasted bird, to which he 

 gave the name palustris; there can be no doubt, therefore, that the 

 Atlantic coast bird should carry the type name. 



The prairie marsh wren is naturally not evenly distributed through- 

 out its wide range. Marshes of the type it requires are often widely 

 scattered, or entirely lacking over large areas. Small, isolated marshes 

 of less than an acre in extent are usually avoided, but where the larger 

 marshes contain suitable vegetation the wrens may be very numerous 

 and their nests more so. 



The favorite haunts of the prairie marsh wren are the large fresh- 

 water marshes of the interior, where there is a dense growth of cattails 

 {Typha angustifolia and T. latifolia)^ bulrushes (Scirpus Jacustris), 

 sedges {Carex) , or wildrice {Zizania aquatica) , which are often mixed 

 with tall marsh grasses of various kinds, or with a scattering growth 

 of buttonbush {C ephalanthus) and other small bushes. In eastern 

 Massachusetts we sometimes find them along the banl?:s of tidal rivers, 

 where the water is brackish and where there is a thick growth of 

 tall reeds and salt-marsh grasses. I have found them, also, in pure 

 stands of wildrice bordering a sluggish inland river. 



Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1905) tells of a large marsh in Essex 

 County, Mass., in which "the growth of rushes and grasses is rank 

 and tall, and among these a multitude of Long-billed Marsh Wrens 



