CiC) SWAMP SPARROW. 



ScNG. Lincoln's Sparrow has a rather feeble chirp while 

 with us ; the song is low, prolonged, rather varied and pleas- 

 ing. It is given as the bird sits in some elevated situation. 



Swamp Sparrow. 



Melospiza georgiana. 

 Plate XV, Fig. 2. 



Top of head, reddish brown, with forehead and sides of 

 head ashy. Back, reddish yellow, broadly streaked with dark 

 brown. Beneath, white, imstreaked but strongly tinged with 

 ashy m a band across breast. Outer edges of wing and tail 

 feathers bright re^Idish brown. Winter adults have an ashy 

 stripe in the middle of tlie crown. Young birds have the sides 

 and flanks streaked with dusky, and the reddish brown of the 

 head streaked with black, and the sides yellowish. Nestlings 

 are quite yellowish throughout, and the lower neck and 

 breast are streaked with dark brown. 



Dimension's. Length, 5.70; stretch, 7.76; wing, 2.85; 

 tail, 2.25 ; bill, . 15 ; tarsus, .82. 



Comparisons. We have no other Sparrow with short wings 

 and a rounded tail which combines the red of the crown with 

 unstreaked, 1 )wer parts. The nestlings are slightly streaked, 

 and the crown is not red, but these may be always disting- 

 uished by the very reddisli edgings to the wing and tail feath- 

 ers. 



Nests and Eggs. Nest placed on tlie ground, usually in 

 swampy places, composed of dried grasses and weeds, lined 

 with finer grass and weeds. They are deeply cup-shaped, 

 about four inches in diameter, and about two and a half in- 

 ches deep. Eggs four or five in number, oval in form, pale 



