IPSWICH SPARROW 659 



Sound than for other winter months, and that the northern movement 

 comes in March when an increase of song sparrows also occurs. At 

 that tune, he says, the birds are not confined to the dunes as in winter 

 but may be found in grassy fields near the beaches. At Jones Beach 

 I once found an individual in dune-bordering marsh grass (Spartina 

 patens). This is also true of Long Island farther west, where spring 

 birds are sometimes found along the grassy borders of the north side 

 of Jamaica Bay, well away from the sea and the flattened, built-upon 

 sands of Long Beach and the Rockaways. 



George B. Rabb (in litt.) of the Charleston Museum remarks that 

 the Ipswich sparrow does not become common enough in South 

 Carohna in spring to indicate a "marked migration of more southerly 

 individuals." Alexander Sprunt, Jr., also in correspondence, gives 

 April 8 as his latest date of spring departure for South Carohna and 

 adds that Arthur T. Wayne once collected a spring specimen 7 miles 

 from the ocean on a bush at the edge of an oat field. Many sand 

 dunes in spring are quite wind-blown and sterile, which probably 

 accounts for the dispersal into other habitat at this season. 



Spring migration becomes more marked northward, and in New 

 Jersey Charles K. Nichols {in litt.) notes that the largest daily numbers 

 are recorded in March, and that the end of migration generally occurs 

 by the second week in April. Julian Potter, in sending records from 

 Brigantine, N.J., from 1932 to 1942, gives his latest date as March 25. 

 Potter reports a fair representation of New Jersey records for Feb- 

 ruary, most of them from the ocean beaches at Stone Harbor, Brigan- 

 tine, Beach Haven, and Barnegat. 



Forbush (1929) says the Ipswich sparrow is uncommon in spring 

 in Massachusetts and a rare local migrant in New Hampshire and 

 Maine. W. A. Squires of the New Brunswick Museum writes me 

 that it is a rare transient in spring migration in that Canadian prov- 

 ince; in fall it apparently crosses the Gulf of Maine without reaching 

 New Brunswick. Records from Grand Manan, Point Lepreaux, St. 

 John, St. Stephen, St. Andrews, and Kent Island run from March 26 

 to May 7, the latter being the latest spring date I know away from 

 Sable Island. The St. John record is an old one reported by Cham- 

 berlain (1883), in which Alfred Morrissey took several out of what he 

 claimed to be a flock of 20 Ipswich sparrows on Apr. 11, 1882. Re- 

 garding this, W. Earl Godfrey of the National Museum of Canada, 

 writes me: "Whether or not Morrissey could separate the Ipswich 

 sparrow from the other races of the Savannah sparrow casts a shadow 

 on the validity of this record." Other than this, three was the largest 

 number reported at any one time in New Brunswick, according to 

 Squires's records. 



On Apr. 11, 1876, on Point Lepreaux, New Brunswick, William 

 Brewster collected a female that was sitting on a rock out on the end 



