LOUISIANA AND TEXAS SEASIDE SPARROWS 849 



through or into coastal regions that are not inhabited during the 



breeding season. 



Distribution 



Range. — The Louisiana seaside sparrow is resident in coastal 

 marshes from eastern Texas (San Antonio Bay, eastward) east to 

 Alabama (Alabama Port, Dauphin Island) and extreme western 

 Florida (Pensacola). Recorded in winter south to Nueces County, 

 Texas. The Texas seaside sparrow is resident in coastal marshes of 

 southern Texas (Nueces and Copano Bays). Recorded in winter 

 south to the mouth of the Rio Grande. 



Egg dates. — Alabama: April 22 to June 25 (number of records not 

 stated). 



Louisiana: 3 records, May 12 to June 11. 



Texas: 22 records, April 15 to July 12; 12 records, May 12 to May 25. 



AMMOSPIZA NIGRESCENS (Ridgway) 



Dusky Seaside Sparrow 



FRONTISPIECE PLATE 47 



Contributed by Charles H. Trost 



Habits 



Limited to the salt and brackish marshes within a lO-mUe radius 

 of Titusville, Brevard County, Fla., the dusky seaside sparrow has 

 one of the most restricted ranges of any North American bird. Robert 

 Ridgway described it as a "variety" of the seaside sparrow in 1873 

 from a specimen sent him from Dummitts Creek, just south of the 

 Haulover Canal between the Indian River and Mosquito Lagoon. 

 Actually the bird was discovered the year before at Salt Lake, a few 

 miles west of Titusville, by Charles J. Maynard (1881), who thus 

 describes the area and his first encounter with the bird he called most 

 fittingly "the black and white shore finch": 



Near the sources of the St. Johns River in Florida is a little body of water, 

 only about two miles in circumference, called Salt Lake and, as its name implies, 

 is quite brackish. * * * In fact the vegetation which covers these wide-spread 

 plains is almost exactly like that which grows on the marshes of the Indian River. 

 It is composed mainly of coarse grass and a species of rush, both of which grow- 

 to a height of four or five feet, and so thickly together that one can scarcely make 

 his way through them. The margin of the lake is, however, destitute of vegeta^ 

 tion as are the beds of numerous small creeks which in the spring and summer 

 are dry, and thus form convenient roads. 



I was making my way along one of these novel patlis on the seventeenth of 

 March, 1872, keeping a sharp lookout for birds, at the same time carefully watch- 

 ing the ground at my feet in order to detect the presence of the venemous water 

 moccasins which were more numerous here than I had ever seen them elsewhere, 



