662 V.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETEN" 237 part 2 



supplying the base. Coarser grasses formed the upper edge of the 

 rim. Eel grass often was added and sometimes moss. He states that 

 the smallest nest, found in crowbeiry, was much heavier than a 

 Savannah sparrow's usual nest. Nests were built mostly in dry 

 locations with two exceptions: one was on low, damp ground under 

 rushes; another, was on drier ground near water among long grass. 



Dwight (1895) examined 9 or 10 nests. He visited the vegetated 

 juniper tracts on the eastward end of the island as well as the dark 

 turfy areas on the western half. He remarks that all of the nests 

 were carefully concealed and not easy to find, especially those deep 

 iu the juniper. Residents told him that the most favored nesting 

 sites were the steep, grassy slopes, often terraced by zigzagging cattle 

 paths, where the bleached and storm-matted grasses afforded ample 

 protection. Of the western end, he remarks that everywhere the 

 trailing stems of crowberry and juniper lend a canopy for nests that 

 sometimes reposed in beds of mosses and lichens. Each nest was 

 placed in a cup-shaped hollow the birds scratch in the sand, about 4 

 inches in diameter and fully 2 inches deep. 



According to Dwight (1895) the nest is compactly woven and much 

 more pretentious than that of the Savannah sparrow. It has the 

 effect of a nest buUt of hay and stubble lined with paler, finer straw. 

 He writes: "It has two distinct parts, an outer shell of coarse material 

 disposed, as a rim and an inner cup finely woven. The excavation 

 is filled in at the sides and around the margin with dead weed stalks, 

 various coarse grasses and sedges, bits of moss or similar materials. 

 These form a shell rising about an inch above the surface of the sand 

 and straggling out over it for an inch or two. The shell is fined 

 almost wholly with the finer bleached blades of an unidentified species 

 of Carex, a few wiry horse hairs, or tufts from the shaggy ponies or 

 cattle, being sometimes added." He says the lining is circularly 

 disposed leaving an inch, more or less, of closely woven grasses 

 between the eggs and the sand beneath. Higher up the walls are 

 considerably thicker on account of the added shell. 



He found two unusual nesting sites on June 2, one in a small tuft 

 of beach grass, and one in a little hollow imder a short bit of board 

 on a flat stretch of bare sod. Later the same day he discovered two 

 more nests, one in crowberry and one in a clump of rose bushes. 



W. E. Saunders (1902b) states nest measurements averaged an 

 inside diameter of 2^ inches, outside 5 inches, depth 2 inches, outside 

 3 inches. The thickness of the walls varied from a half an inch to 

 2 inches. Dwight gives six nests the average inside diameter in milli- 

 meters as 58.33, outside diameter 114.5, the inside depth as 45.5, 

 outside depth 72. 



