790 ■'J-S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part 2 



fashion by tidal channels and stagnant sloughs." To the eastward, 

 the marshes become gradually less salt. Near Sackville, New Bruns- 

 wick (C. S. Robbms and G. F. Boyer, 1953), as in the Petitcodiac 

 valley (J. Dwight, 1896), the meadows are diked for the cultivation 

 of hay. Spartina pectinata is the dominant plant and grows luxuri- 

 antly, but along the ditches where brackish water occasionally backs 

 up, Juncus gerardi, Triglochin maritima, Puccinellia maritima, and a 

 few patches of Salicornia europea also occur. The sharp-tails were 

 noted in both fresh and brackish portions of the marsh. Savannah 

 sparrows and bobolinks were in close proximity, but were nesting 

 only along the dikes which supported a different plant community. 

 In the study area at Sackville, the density of subvirgata was five pairs 

 in 26.6 acres. Elsewhere in New Brunswick, Dwight (1887) found 

 them "along a swampy brook fully a mile from salt water, fraterniz- 

 ing with Swamp Sparrows and * * * Yellowthroats among the alder 

 bushes." C. W. Townsend (1912a) reported them in the St. John 

 valley in an entirely fresh water environment that included arrow- 

 head and white pond lilies. Moore (in Squires, 1952) found them in 

 the same valley breeding on islands above Fredericton, N.S., nearly 

 1 00 miles from the sea. 



About the area farther north, Jonathan Dwight (1896) says: "Quite 

 different are the salt marshes of Prince Edward Island and of the 

 St. Lawrence * * *. There short grass, bogs and few ditches are 

 the rule, though the birds seem equally at home." Elsewhere on 

 Prince Edward Island, WiUiam Brewster (1877) reported them at 

 Tignish in "a wide waste of marsh, dry, and at some distance from the 

 sea, grown up to bushes, with scattered dead pine stubs, remnants 

 of a former forest." 



At Corner-of-the-Beach near Perc^ on the Gasp6 Peninsula, L. M. 

 Terrdl (in litt.) found them "along the Portage River * * * nearly 

 a mile from the St. Lawrence. This extensive area of marsh * * * 

 was somewhat brackish, being subject to tidal flow up the streams 

 which meander through it. * * * Dense stands of the bulrush, 

 Scirpus vah'dus, formed the principal growth in the areas occupied by 

 the Sharp-tail. Nesting associates included several ducks, notably 

 the Pintail, Wilson's Snipe, American Bittern, Virginia Rail, Sora, 

 Yellow Rail, a few Red-winged Blackbirds and numerous Swamp 

 Sparrows." R. C. Clement (in litt.) found them at Kamouraska, 

 the westernmost breeding station, in "a lush meadow of taU grasses 

 (Calamogrostris and Elymus)" and also "in a higher but still moist 

 meadow of flags {Iris versicolor and /. setosa) and cinquefoils (Poten- 

 tilla palustris)" This is obviously a completely fresh-water habitat. 



Nesting. — A. H. Norton (1927) found a nest at Phippsburg, Maine. 

 "The nest was completely covered by the reclining mat of Spartina 



