26 SEA-SIDE SPARROW. 



There is a dusky spot back of the ear coverts. Back, streaked 

 somewhat broadly "with brown, wings and tail brown, with 

 the feathers edged with ashy brown. Edge of wing, yellow. 

 Beneath, ashy white, with a darker ashy band across the 

 breast and ashy along the sides, both streaked with darker. 

 Young birds are more or less buify below, but with broad 

 gray stripes. 



Dimensions. Length, 5.50; stretch, 8.25; wing, 2.50; 

 tail, 2.10 ; bill, .60; tarsus, .80. 



Comparisons. This is the grayest of all of our New Eng- 

 land Sparrows, and is thus easily distinguishable. It is also 

 larger and stouter than the Sharp-tailed Sparrow. 



Nests and Eggs. Nests, placed on the ground or near it 

 in the grass. They are gourd-shaped, with a contracted en- 

 trance on top ; partly covered, having the entrance on one 

 side, or cup-shaped and open. Eggs, four, five, or even 

 six in number, rather elliptical in form, dull white in color, 

 spotted and dotted quite finely with reddish-brown and sepia. 

 Dimensions, .80 by .58. 



General Habits. This is an abundant summer resident 

 of the salt marshes of southern Connecticut., and a few strag- 

 glers have been found in Massachusetts. In the winter they 

 congregate in vast numbers in the marshes of the Carolinas 

 and Georgia. Here every square acre holds its thousands, 

 and every mile its hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of 

 these little gray birds. At first one is not aware that there 

 are so many, for they remain concealed most of the time but 

 during the highest tides, they are forced to retreat before 

 the advancing flood until they are obliged to perch upon the 

 tops of the swaying grass, where they crouch, patiently await- 



