NELSON'S SHARP-TAILED SPARROW 817 



It was constructed of coarse grass lined with finer grasses and rested 

 on the ground, not being in the least sunken. A tiny dead wUlow a 

 few inches high supported one edge of the nest but no definite chnnp 

 of vegetation surrounded it." 



C. W. Bowman (1904) found a nest at De\'il's Lake, N.D., which 

 was "sunken level with the ground, * * * well concealed by its 

 small size and the thick clump of grass." E. S. Rolfe (1899), also at 

 Devil's Lake, found another nest sunken into the wet earth. At 

 Long Lake, Manitoba, J. Macoun (1900) reported a nest in a tuft of 

 marsh grass a few inches above the ground. The Nelson's sharp-tail 

 is said to exhibit more anxiety about its nest than do the other races. 



Nelson's sharp-tail migrates in a southerly and a southeasterly 

 direction to both the Gulf and the southern Atlantic coasts. It has 

 been collected widely but sparingly on the Atlantic coast as far north 

 as New England, and is steadilj'- more regular southward. There are 

 many more fall than spring records toward the north. Many of the 

 northeastern reports, however, were made prior to the description of 

 altera, so specimens should be reexamined to check the race (cf. the 

 Clarendon, Vt., specimen reported in the life history of -4. c. suhvirgata). 

 Contrary to apparent logic, J. L. Peters {in Griscom, 1949, and 

 Griscom and Snyder, 1955) found nelsoni to outnumber altera m 

 Massachusetts; yet A. D. Cruickshank (1942) found no specimens of 

 nelsoni whatsoever for the New York City region. Obviously, more 

 collecting is necessary to determine the status of these races in the 

 northeast. In the Mississippi valley nelsoni has been reported widely 

 in small to moderate numbers. 



Though it breeds only in fresh water, the Nelson's sparrow is always 

 found in salt marshes in the winter and is common on the South 

 Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida coasts along with all the other 

 races. It is by far the commonest of the five races on the Gulf coast. 

 It has been collected southwest to Corpus Christi, Tex., and there 

 are sight records on the Laguna Atascosa WilcUife Refuge just north 

 of the Rio Grande. It may be surmised that this race tends to 

 foUow its "ancestral" route to the southern Atlantic coast, but that 

 many individuals accompany other migrants down the Mississippi 

 Valley. The dates in South Carolina (Sprunt and Chamberlain, 

 1949) are September 24 to May 17 and in Louisiana (H. C. Oberholser, 

 1938) October 24 to May 20. Ridgway (1891) described one speci- 

 men collected accidentally in CaUfornia as the type of the race becki, 

 not accepted by the A.O.U. Check-List Committee. 



Eggs. — The eggs number four or five and are described as marked 

 exactly as those of A. c. caudacuta but smaller, averaging 16.5 to 18.3 

 by 12.7 millimeters. 



