832 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 2 



singing birds by late March, and the first wave appears to be all of 

 males. A week or so later there are females among them." Little 

 appears to be known of the mating and courtship procedures in this 

 form. The writer has never mtnessed them or heard from anyone who 

 has. That they differ from those of other subspecies seems unlikely. 



In the Savannah, Ga., area, Tomkins (1941) notes the "nests may 

 be built in many different situations * * * from eight inches above 

 the marsh mud in Sporobolus-Paspalum to three feet in Spartina or 

 Juncus, and up to five feet in Baccharis." He adds that the top 

 entrance nests "are built of the softer grass blades in the vicinity, 

 and when not covered by the natural foliage, are canopied. This 

 canopy was more nearly complete where there were heavily incubated 

 sets of eggs, so probably it is added to as incubation progresses. 

 The growing grasses are woven into the canopy if available. Those 

 nests naturally sheltered by the foliage in the tops of Baccharis are 

 without canopy." On Cabbage Island, Ga., he found the birds "nesting 

 in the head-high tops of the groundsel trees (Baccharis halimifolia) 

 that rimmed the sand-shell ridge back of the outer beach. The birds 

 did not feed near the nests at all, but commuted back and forth 

 from the nest locality to the wet banks of the salt creeks some two hun- 

 dred yards back in the island." 



Arthur T. Wayne, the veteran ornithologist of the South Carolina 

 Low Country from 1883 to 1930, knew this sparrow intimately and 

 collected it often, but search as he might and did, he was not able to 

 find its nest. He looked for it where he collected the birds in the salt 

 marshes, and, as the years passed, his puzzlement increased. In 1910 

 he wrote: "I have been unable to find this form breeding on our coast, 

 yet it is possible that it does, since the young in first plumage occurred 

 during the second week in July, and the adults in worn breeding 

 plumage are to be seen during the third week in July. A distinct 

 northward migration takes place about April 16, and continues until 

 April 27, when all the birds have gone north, and of course to their 

 breeding grounds." 



Wayne had simply looked in the wrong place. When these sparrows 

 leave the salt marshes in April, they retire just a few miles inland to 

 nest in brackish or fresh water habitats, where Wayne just never 

 happened to be at the right season. I (1924) described how, accom- 

 panied by E. B. Chamberlain, I had the good fortune to find the first 

 nests in South Carolina. Driving down the Ocean Highway (U.S. 

 Route 17) we saw several seaside sparrows fly across the road about 

 10 miles south of Charleston where it crosses a brackish marsh near 

 Rantowles Creek. The birds flew into the marsh and disappeared 

 into clumps of bulrushes (Scirpus sp.) dotting the area. Unable to 

 stop then, we returned at our first opportunity a few days later on 



