macGillivray's seaside sparrow 835 



Distribution 



Range. — MacGilli^Tay's seaside sparrow is resident in the Atlantic 

 coastal marshes from North Carolina (Dare County) south to Georgia 

 (Camden County); casual in winter southward to Florida (St. John's 

 County). 



Egg dates. — Georgia: 48 records, May 20 to June 29; 20 records, 

 May 10 to May 30. 



AMMOSPIZA MARITIMA PELONOTA (Oberholser) 



Smyrna Seaside Sparrow 



PLATE 46 



Contributed by Oliver L. Austin, Jr. 



Habits 



This poorly-marked subspecies, which Griscom (1944) regarded as 

 a "barely-recognizable minor population in northeast Florida," is 

 very similar to macgillinraii, from which it differs allegedly in averaging 

 sUghtly smaller and in lacking the broad dark shaft stripes on the 

 middle tail feathers. The 1957 A.O.U. Check-List gives its distribu- 

 tion as "Resident locally in salt marshes of northeastern Florida from 

 AmeUa Island to New Smyrna." 



The marshes at New SmjTna Beach, where Howell collected 

 Oberholser's type in 1925, was apparently then the form's southern 

 limit, for Howell (1932) states: "Search was made for these birds in 

 the marshes of Mosquito Lagoon in May 1925, but none was found 

 there; apparently there are no breeding colonies of Seaside Sparrows 

 south of New Smyrna, except on Merritt Island, where the Dusky 

 Seaside occurs." This was verified by the late Donald J. Nicholson 

 of Orlando, a veteran egg collector who knew the Florida seaside 

 sparrows very well. He (1946) states: "the birds breed within a 

 very limited area in very large numbers, within a radius of four miles 

 of New Smyrna. * * * j bave not found the species nesting South 

 of New Smyrna. A few breed as far North as Daytona Beach along 

 the Halifax River. I have not found the birds in apparently suitable 

 spots along the river south of Matanzas Inlet where they again are 

 found in colonies." 



A few years later Nicholson (1950) noted an alarming decline in the 

 New Smyrna population: 



As recent a date as 1939, hundreds of birds still bred in this marsh, but since 

 that date have become increasingly fewer in numbers, and during the Springs of 

 1948 and 1949, when repeated searches were made by both Wray H. Nicholson 

 and myself, not a single bird, or even an old nest, was in evidence. They have 

 completely disappeared. 



