660 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part 2 



of the point. An Ipswich sparrow I watched at Atlantic Beach, 

 Long Island, two decades ago often left the dunes to forage among 

 the large rocks on the land side of the breakwater. 



Grassy strips bordering the ocean parkway at Gilgo on Jones 

 Beach, Long Island, were formerly productive of many records during 

 spring migration. During a good infiltration of song and tree spar- 

 rows, an Ipswich sparrow or two often fed along with them and offered 

 good opportunities for study in the short grass. On Apr. 1, 1950, 

 I counted six Ipswich sparrows on these grassy tracts and on Mar. 29, 

 1940, I estimated 10 or 11 to be present. A dual parkway has since 

 obliterated these grassy strips. 



Courtship.— -3 onsbihsiD. Dwight, Jr. (1895) writes of his Sable Island 

 experience: "It was impossible to pry much into their domestic affairs, 

 they were so retiring. All seemed to be mated at the time of my 

 arrival (May 24), and they appeared to take life very quietly. The 

 demeanor of the males, when paying court to their admiring mates, 

 was largely a parade of bowing fiutterings, accompanied by a low, 

 murmuring chirruping." Regarding male competition he states: 

 "Only once did I actually catch the males quarreling among them- 

 selves; but toward the end of my stay I secured several with heads 

 so denuded of feathers that it was evidently not a question of whether 

 they had been fighting, but of how much." 



Nesting. — The general nesting range of the Ipswich sparrow ex- 

 tends down the interior of Sable Island from a little west of where 

 the old main station stood in 1948 to the east lighthouse, a distance 

 of about 17 miles. To understand the Ipswich sparrow's nesting 

 activities and the extent of its breeding ground, the unique physical 

 features of Sable Island should be described. To quote from my 

 own (1956) report: 



On the eastern half of Sable Island Bank lies unique Sable Island, "Graveyard 

 of the Atlantic." * * * It is gradually shrinking in size and its predicted fate 

 is that in time it will disappear, the last of many tracts believed to have occurred 

 in this region. Submergence of the others has isolated the Ipswich sparrow to 

 this, its present insular and only nesting grounds. 



To this island, sometimes fog-bound for weeks at a time, Ipswich sparrows 

 must travel from the mainland each spring, although an estimated one-fifth 

 winter on the island. Residents there say returning numbers increase over the 

 wintering population in late April and May. 



Sable Island (sable means sand in French) is about 24.5 miles long with a 

 maximum width of about one mile. It is gradually washing away on the west 

 end and building up more slowly on the east. Its east end is about 100 miles 

 out in the Atlantic off Nova Scotia, east-southeast from Halifax. From ship- 

 board it appears as a long, sandy cliff facing the ocean and tapering down on the 

 ends. Its western tip is low, fiat sand, and eastward for about two miles sup- 

 ports a few windrows or sand dunes with shaggy crests of beach grass (Ammophila). 

 This broadens a mile further east into an attractive, peaty interior, protected 

 from the ocean and containing five or six semi-fresh-water ponds, well-vegetated 



