672 TJ.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part 2 



spring Savannah sparrows are broadly streaked with white on the 

 upper back and scapulars. These, however, are contrasty brown and 

 white and lack the washed-out appearance of the Ipswich. Never- 

 theless, great care must be taken to distinguish the two, particularly 

 in late spring. 



Enemies. — On Sable Island, cats, foxes, and rats— the latter from 

 shipwrecks — have threatened the Ipswich sparrow population for 

 many years. Dwight found fewer in 1894 than Saunders did in 

 1901, and Saunders (1902a) reported the extermination of the foxes. 

 In 1948 I found few apparent enemies of the Ipswich sparrow on 

 Sable Island and the birds fairly abundant. Inquiry revealed two 

 or three cats — household pets — on the island, and comparatively few 

 rats. Some unidentified predator, however, had killed six adults 

 and about a dozen half-grown young of the arctic tern in a colony 

 near the western end of the island. 



Undoubtedly, some birds are lost in migration to and from this 

 fog-bound and storm-battered island some 100 miles off Nova Scotia's 

 coast. Of those that do not migrate some must perish from the 

 rigors of its severe winters. Saunders (1902a) tells how the inhabit- 

 ants sometimes picked up exhausted and chilled Ipswich sparrows 

 during winter and sheltered and fed them until better weather arrived. 

 After the severe winter of 1947-48, Arthur MacDonald, a crewman 

 at the main station on Sable Island, told me that he had found fully 

 a dozen dead Ipswich sparrows here and there on the upper edges of 

 abrupt dunes. Several groups lying in and about matted grass roots 

 torn away by the wind he thought had apparently died of exposure. 



On the mainland the shrinking of suitable habitat as the shore line 

 is developed for real estate up and down the coast is a factor of 

 moment. Cats, rats, hawks, and specmien collectors no doubt also 

 take their share of Ipswich sparrows. Collectors have always exacted 

 their toll, from the time of professional collectors on Long Island in 

 the 1880's and 1890's to present-day "scientific" collecting in the 

 southern part of their wintering range — Maryland, Virginia, the 

 Carolinas, and Georgia. I feel it is time the collecting of this relict 

 species be sharply restricted. Its nesting range is only some 17 miles 

 of narrow, shrinking Sable Island, and its winter range, already 

 despoiled in the northeast, is shi-inking too, progressively forcing this 

 unfortunate bird of many perils nearer to oblivion. Although 

 occasional Savannah sparrows are found dead from time to time along 

 the ocean boulevard at Jones Beach, I know of only one Ipswich 

 sparrow ever having been struck by a motor car, and this one was able 

 to fly away. 



Fall. — ^W. A. Jeffries (1879) writes of his collecting experiences in 

 Massachusetts. When they first arrived in the fall, the Ipswich 



