FRINGILLID.E — THE FINCHES. 559 



The flight of this species is quite different from tliat of any other bird, and 

 by it they may at once be recognized. In flying, they also drop their tails 

 very low. 



Mr. Audubon states that during the winter the Sharp-tailed Finch is 

 furnished with an extra quantity of feathers on the rump, for which he finds 

 it difficult to account. 



These birds are essentially maritime, are found only in the vicinity of the 

 sea, and always keep immediately about the water, except when the inclem- 

 ency of the weather drives them to the high grass of the uplands for shelter. 

 They walk and run, or remain feeding on the floating weeds and other sub- 

 stances raised by the tide, with all the ease and fearlessness with which they 

 move on the land. They are gregarious in tlie winter, and in the Southern 

 marshes are found feeding in companies. During the breeding-season they 

 keep more in pairs, and are found more isolated. At tliis time they are also 

 shy, and difficult to detect. Their usual call-note is only a single tiucct, and 

 in the love-season their series of twitters Mr. Audubon thinks hardly wor- 

 thy to be called a song. They feed indiscriminately on seeds, insects, small 

 crustaceans, and various forms of refuse matter floated or thrown up by the 

 tides. 



On the coast of New Jersey, where these birds are found in the greatest 

 abundance, they have at least two broods in a season. Their nest is on the 

 ground, in a small tussock of grass or sedges, but little removed from the 

 reach of the tide, and is placed in a depression apparently excavated for the 

 purpose. They are loosely made of soft and slender grasses, arranged in a 

 circular form. The nest is large for the bird, spacious and deep, and is softly 

 lined with finer and similnr materials. 



Their eggs, five or six in number, are of a somewhat rounded oval shape, 

 having an average breadth of .59 of an inch, and vary in length from .78 to 

 .70. Their ground-color is a light green, occasionally a dull white, with 

 hardly a perceptible tinge of greenish, tliickly sprinkled equally over the en- 

 tire egg, with fine rusty-brown dots. These are of various sizes, but all fine. 

 In a few the larger dots are confluent in a ring around the larger end ; in 

 others, the finer dots are so small as to be only distinguishable under a glass, 

 concealing the ground-color, and giving to the egg an almost uniform rusty 

 color. These eggs vary but little in shape, and are nearly equally rounded 

 at either end, though never entirely so. 



