The Short-billed Marsh Wren (Cistothorus stellaris) 

 in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey 



BY LA RUE K. HOLMES 



It is my purpose in the present paper to give a summary of 

 the most important published records, with which I am famil- 

 iar, that have any bearing on the status of the Short-billed 

 Marsh Wren (Cktothorm stellaris) in Eastern Pennsylvania and 

 New Jersey, together with a few unrecorded observations made 

 in northern New Jersey by friends of the author. 



With the exception of Audubon the earlier writers on Orni- 

 thology seem to have been entirely ignorant of the existence of 

 this species. Why, I cannot tell, unless they confused it with 

 its near relative, the Long-billed Marsh Wren (Telrnatodytes 

 palmtris). It is, however, very likely that they never happened 

 to hunt in marshes inhabited by it. Audubon, though familiar 

 with it, appears never to have found it in either State concerned, 

 as he records in his " Birds of America," as follows: "While 

 in New Jersey, in the summer of 1832, after I had become ac- 

 quainted with this species through Nuttall, I spent several days 

 in searching the fresh-water marshes, often waist-deep in mud, 

 in the hopes of procuring it; but my efforts, as well as those of 

 my friend, Edw. Harris, Esq., and my sons, were unsuccessful." 



It is to be presumed that these days were spent in the marshes 

 of central and southern Jersey, probably at no great distance 

 from Philadelphia, and as this bird is rare in that section to-day 

 it is not difficult to understand why he did not find it in the 

 few days that he searched for it. In direct contrast to the ex- 

 periences of Audubon are those of Dr. C. C. Abbott, who, in 

 his list of birds of New Jersey [18G8], records the following re- 

 markable observations: "More abundant than the preceding 

 (C. palustria), and frequents the same localities, builds a large, 

 globular nest of grass, supported by firm bulrush stalks, raises 



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