DELAWARE VALLEY OKNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 23 



almost impossible, and in this vtay they may have been over- 

 looked. At any rate, Mr. Pennock's record should be accepted 

 until it is proven he is wrong. 



My own knowledge of this bird is limited to its occurrence 

 within a radius of fifteen miles of Summit, N. J., having 

 found it breeding in the marshes left by the receding waters of 

 the prehistoric Lake Passaic, which formerly covered a large 

 portion of Morris, Union, Essex and Passaic counties. These 

 marshes are fresh and their united waters form the source of 

 the Passaic river. They differ greatly in character and size. 

 The Great Swamp is the large^^t one w'ithin a day's walk of 

 Summit and covers many square miles; it varies from meadow 

 to the wettest kind of a wet stvamp, from brush to virgin forests 

 with trees a hundred or more feet in height. These latter, 

 however, are rapidly being cut, and it will be but a few years 

 before tliey will have entirely disappeared. The Lee, Troy, 

 Whippau}', JBlack and Chatham meadows are similar but on a 

 smaller scale. 



Slellaris has been found at the Miersville end of the Great 

 Swamp by Mr. W. D. W. Miller, of Plainfield, but he has been 

 unable to locate its nest. Messrs. H. H. Hann, H. Merriam, 

 J. P. Callender and the writer, all of Summit, have found the 

 bird breeding in several localities in the Great Swamp, princi- 

 pally near Miersville, Green Village and the Red Brick School- 

 house. 



At Miersville thej' build in damp meadows near heavy tim- 

 ber; at Green Village in similar locations, while near the School- 

 house they breed, over water varying in depth from six to 

 twenty inches, in companj' with pabistris, which also breeds in 

 the other two localities, but not in the same part of the marsh 

 >\s stellaris, and always (?) over water. 



In the Lee meadows near ^Malpardis, Mr. J. P. Callender and 

 myself have found stellaris breeding over two feet of water; no 

 palustris were seen or heard, but I have been told that they 

 breed there also. 



On the banks of the Passaic, near Chatham, stellaris breeds on 

 one side of the river and palustris on the opposite bank; the 

 shores are identical in appearance, but, I have been told, that 



