THE IPSWICH SPARROW {AMMODRAMUS PRINCEPS) AND 



ITS SUMMER HOME. 



BY JONATHAN DWIGHT, JR., M. D. 



Discovered among the sand-hills of Ipswich, Massachusetts, b}' Mr. 

 C. J. Maynard, and the single specimen obtained by him December 4, 

 1868, wrongly identified as Baird's Sparrow of the far West by no less 

 eminent an authority than Professor S. F. Baird, the Ipswich Sparrow, for 

 a long time after it was recognized as a new species, enjoyed a reputation 

 for rarity which later observations have not sustained. Gradually the few 

 energetic collectors who have cared to face the wintry winds that sweep 

 the desolate stretches of low sand-hills fringing so much of our Atlantic 

 coast, have proved the bird to be a regular migrant or winter visitor, found 

 more or less abundantly from Maine to Georgia. For nearly sixteen years 

 after its discovery there was no clue to its breeding haunts until, in 1884, a 

 single summer specimen was obtained from Sable Island, Nova Scotia. 

 Until ten years later no successful effort was made to solve the mysterv 

 shrouding the summer home of a shy and silent species that disappeared 

 from our shores with the earliest breath of spring, not to return again before 

 the frosts of autumn had browned the waving clumps of coarse grass where 

 it makes its winter home. It was in the hope of reading some of the 

 unturned pages of the life-history of this interesting Sparrow that I visited 

 Sable Island during the summer of 1894. A long personal acquaintance 

 with the bird, added to my recent observations, enables me to present a 

 comjirehensive account of a species which, a New England discovery 

 itself, annually imitates the Pilgrim Fathers in landing on New England's 

 shores ; and I am confident my brother ornithologists, of that part of the 

 country at least, will feel a particular interest in the new facts I am able 

 to present regarding a species so peculiarly their own. 



Perhaps one of the most interesting results of my trip has been to 

 establish the fact that the Ipswich Sparrow is resident on Sable Island the 

 whole year round. Moreover, it is the only land bird that makes its nest 

 there, being known as the ' Gray Bird' to the few inhabitants. As no other 

 breeding grounds have ever been found (and careful search has been 

 made by several observers), Sable Island may truly be called the home of 



