CAPE SABLE SPARROW 861 



made, only a decade ago, of Cape Sable sparrows breeding in a fresh 

 water saw-grass (Mariscus) habitat (Stimson, 1956, 1961). 



Subsequent investigations have shown the entire population of the 

 species today to be scattered in small colonies in the narrow belt of 

 fresh and brackish marshes from the Shark River basin northwestward 

 some 40 miles to the Ochopee-Everglades City area. Before the 

 Tamiami Trail was opened in 1928, this region was truly a wilderness 

 and extremely diflBcult to reach. The highway now traverses parts 

 of the inland marsh between the mangroves and the cypress from 

 Royal Palm Hammock in Collier-Seminole State Park to Ochopee, 

 and has opened up the adjoining land to humans, somewhat to the 

 detriment of the birds. Swamp-buggies and air-boats now give 

 deeper access into it, but for a man on foot the area is still difficult to 

 penetrate. 



Territory. — In the coastal marshes at Cape Sable, Howell (1932) 

 found "the birds occur rather sparingly in small, more or less isolated 

 colonies." This pattern the birds still adhere to in their present 

 range. Over the years from 1943 to date I have often found from 10 

 to 16 singing males in areas of a quarter to a half a square mile. 

 On Apr. 26, 1959, O. L. Austin, Jr., searched the Ochopee marsh and 

 wrote me: 'T found a thriving Uttle colony and spent most of the day 

 studying it, I counted 19 birds, most of them in pairs, and apparently 

 estabUshed on temtories from 100 to 300 yards apart. I estimated 

 at least 9 or 10 pairs in that perhaps square mile of marsh." Aside 

 from singing to advertise their occupancy, I have never observed any 

 defense of territory, nor have I found any mention of it in the published 

 accounts. 



Nesting. — H. H. Bailey (1925) describes the first nest of the Cape 

 Sable sparrow he found May 12, 1921, as "composed of dry salt marsh 

 grass, and lined with very fine grasses, attached to some upright 

 marsh grass waist-high and growing in a brackish swale, and com- 

 pletely covered with matted-down dead marsh grass." The second 

 known nest, according to Howell (1932) was taken by E. J. Court on 

 Mar. 29, 1925. It contained five fresh eggs and was situated on the 

 groimd at the base of a clump of grass. The third man to find nests 

 and eggs of this species was D. J. Nicholson (1928) who thus describes 

 his experiences near Cape Sable on Apr. 10 and 13, 1927: 



Coming to several scattered bunches of switch-grass [Spartina] near a shallow 

 pond, I thought I would give it a search and in a few minutes was staring down 

 upon my first set of four eggs of this very rare sparrow. 



There was no bird in sight nor did I see one leave the nest, and there was no 

 indication that sparrows owned this nest, so quiet and indifferent were the birds. 

 I left the nest for fifteen minutes and returning flushed her off the nest at ten feet. 

 She flew directly from the nest and perched on top of the grass fifteen feet away, 



