850 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part 2 



when my attention was attracted by a little black bird which rose from the high 

 grass about twenty yards from me, hovered a moment, uttering a feeble sputtering 

 song, then dropped down and disappeared. I saw it but a moment, yet I was 

 convinced that it was something that I had never seen before. I laboriously made 

 my way to the spot, but was unable to start it even after the most vigorous efforts. 

 This was my first sight of the new Ammodromus, for I was certain that it belonged 

 to this genus and in a day or two my suspicions w^ere confirmed, for an assistant 

 brought in a specimen which he had taken in the place I had first seen it. We did 

 not find any more near Salt Lake nor did I see a single specimen, but shortly after 

 I found them quite common on the marshes of Indian River. Yet I only took 

 seven specimens there, for the birds are exceedingly difficult to obtain as they are 

 not only very shy, but after once starting will seldom rise a second time, remaining 

 concealed in the thick grass. * * * This species was quite common on the 

 marshes of the Indian River, just below Dummett's Grove, but I never saw a 

 specimen north of Haulover Canal. They were very abundant on the upper 

 end of Merritt's Island where I obtained a few. 



The birds still occur today about where Maynard reported finding 

 them almost a century ago. A few small colonies persist in brackish 

 marshes bordering the St. Johns west from Titusville and Indian 

 River City, but the main breeding colonies occupy the salt marshes 

 directly across the Indian River from Titusville along the western 

 shore of the peninsula north of Merritt Island. 



Concerning its remarkably restricted range Chapman (1912) com- 

 mented: "In view of the fact that this species is abundant and that 

 the region it inhabits is in no sense isolated, but that both to the north 

 and south there are marshes apparently similar to those it occupies, 

 the restriction of its range to an area of only a few square miles in 

 extent makes its distribution unique among North American birds." 

 This is not quite accurate, for the adjoining marshes both to the north 

 and south have extensive growths of black mangrove, Avecennia nitida, 

 which seem to act as a barrier to the duskies. The barrier to the 

 north is not permanent, for it is near the mangrove's northern limit 

 of growth, and frosts kill the larger shrubs back every 20 to 30 years. 



The northern edge of this mangrove growth also marked until a 

 few years ago the southern boundary of the breeding range of the 

 Smyrna seaside sparrow (A. m. jpelonota), which led George Sutton 

 (1949) to remark: 



"There is, apparently, a definite break between the range of 

 nigrescens and that oipelonota * * * about 30 miles north of Titusville. 

 [Should the mangroves continue to encroach,] pelonota might con- 

 ceivably drift southward into the range of nigrescens. We could, 

 perhaps, lay no better plan for ascertaining whether nigrescens is a 

 full species. Were the bird not merely a race of Ammospiza maritima 

 it would, presumably, find its own peculiar niche within the salt 

 marsh habitat and maintain its specific integrity despite inevitable 

 competition with the structurally and ecologically similar intruder." 



