EASTERN SHARP-TAILED SPARROW 797 



have had the experience of finding them one morning in a marsh 

 where none were present the day before. 



Habitat. — The breeding range of A. c. caudacuta (type locality, New- 

 York) is strictly coastal, extending from near Tuckerton, N.J., where 

 the population intergrades with A. c. diversa, north to Scarboro, Maine, 

 where it intergrades with A. c. subvirgata. The southern limit coincides 

 roughly ^vith the southern limit of glaciation and the northern with a 

 shift from morainal to rocky substrate. This section of the eastern 

 seaboard is characterized by glacial deposits, chiefly moraines, both 

 terminal and recessional, with their outwash plains. 



The sharp-tails dwell in the wide green salt marshes, soft and 

 meadowUke, that are usually enclosed by low-terraced barrier beaches, 

 often with a line of sand dunes interposed between the beach and the 

 marsh. Back of the marshes the uplands rise gradually in more 

 terraces and low rounded hills, usualh'- of gravel interspersed with 

 boulders and often supporting a broad-leafed forest. These marshes 

 are of fine black silt, often seemingly bottomless, with some mixture 

 of sand along the creeks and tidal channels that interlace them. In 

 WiUiam Brewster's (MS.) words: "Narrow winding creeks intersect 

 the marsh in every direction. Near their mouths these creeks are 

 often 15 or 20 feet wide, but they narrow rapidly as one follows them 

 back and frequently branch into several still smaller ones, which are 

 lost altogether in subterranean passages or take their rise in little 

 pools or swampy areas a few yards square. Their depth is very 

 uniformly about 5 feet, with muddy banks of about 4 feet, and from 

 the edge of the banks a gentle incline up to the level of the salt marsh. 

 At high tide these creeks are nearly or quite bank full; at low tide the 

 water is only a few inches deep with black mud and eel grass exposed 

 in many places. The banks are always at least perpendicular and 

 usually more or less overhanging, the water eating them out beneath." 



The intricacy of the winding and twisting pattern taken by these 

 creeks and the rapidity with which they narrow to small channels is 

 most appreciated when viewed from the air. 



The plants of these marshes form a stable climax community. 

 Regardmg them, C. W. Townsend (1905) writes: 



From a botanical point of view the salt marshes can be divided into three dis- 

 tinct regions. First, the region of the coarse salt-grass {Spartina stricta) [ = <S. 

 alterniflora] everywhere in Essex County called "thatch," which flourishes on the 

 edges of the creeks only, v/ashed by every tide. It grows to a height of four or 

 five feet. * * * The second region is that of the salt-grass or marsh hay {Puc- 

 einellia maritima and Spartina patens), a region reached by tides once or twice a 

 month at full or new moon. This grass rarely grows more than ton or twelve 

 inches in height. * * * Among the salt-grass grow patches of samphire (SohVornta 

 herbacea) [ = S. europea]. The marsh rosemary {Statice limonium, var. caroliniana) 

 [= Limonium caroliniana] is common, and the grass-like seaside plantain {Plantago 



