THE IPSWICH SPARROW. 



39 



days. It is a much more pretentious aflair than that of the Savanna 

 Sparrow, and has the effect of a nest huilt of hay and stubble, lined with 

 paler, finer straw. There are two distinct parts, an outer shell of coarse 

 materials that are disposed like a rim, and an inner cup of closely woven, 

 slender grasses. The little basin first excavated by the birds is filled in at 

 the sides and around the margin with dead weed stalks, various coarse 

 grasses and sedges, bits of moss, or similar materials. These form a shell 

 rising about an inch above the surface of the sand and straefrline out over 

 it for an inch or two. The shell is lined almost wholly with the finer 

 bleached blades of an unidentifiable species of Carex, a few wiry horse- 

 hairs, or tufts from the shaggy ponies or cattle, being sometimes added. 

 The lining is circularly disposed, and smoothed down as only a bird can 

 do it, leaving between the eggs and the sand beneath an inch, more or 

 less, of closely woven grass, while higher up the walls are considerably 

 thicker on account of the added outer shell. 



Until it was proved that no Savanna Sparrow bred on Sable Island, the 

 ' Gray Birds' ' eggs collected in 1862 (before the species was discovered), 

 and now in the National Museum, were open to doubt. I have in my 

 possession a set of savanna that is absolutely indistinguishable in every 

 particular from one of the sets of frincefs now before me. To misuse a 

 term, I might say that the eggs intergrade ; and we should naturally 

 expect northern-breeding savanna to lay even larger eggs than those of 

 this set. However, I now have before me five authentic sets of 

 Aniinodramtis frinccps, two with five eggs, and three with four, making 

 twenty-two eggs in all, from which I derive the following measurements : — 



Average size, 21.6 mm. (.85 in.) x 15.5 mm. (.61 in.). 



Extremes of length, 23.1 mm. (.91 in.) to 20.3 mm. (.80 in.). 



Extremes of diameter, 15.7 mm. (.62 in.) to 15.2 mm. (.60 in.). 



They average a little larger than the eggs of ^. s. savanna, from which 

 they are otherwise indistinguishable, and they resemble the eggs of several 

 other Sparrows. The ground color is bluish or grayish white, often so 

 washed with brown as to appear olive brown, and usually so splashed and 

 sprinkled with different shades of umber and Vandyke brown as almost to 

 conceal the color of the shell. There are also purplish and grayish brown 

 markings that are less apparent on most of the eggs than are the bolder 

 blotches of the deeper browns that in the majority of cases aggregate about 

 the larger end and form there a ring. A good many of the eggs have besides 

 a few irregular hair lines (as if done with a pen) of deep brown. The eggs 

 of the same set will vary much in coloration, and several very brown and 

 slightly spotted eggs may be associated with a bluish blotched egg that 

 looks as if it belonged to some other set. The shape is usually ovate, but 

 in one set the eggs are long and slender. 



