SEA-SIDE FINCH. 117 



cipal food is grass seeds, wild oats, and insects. They have no song ; 

 are distinguished by a single chip or cheep, uttered in a rather hoarser 

 tone than that of the Song Sparrow ; flirt the tail as they fly ; seldom 

 or never take to the trees, but skulk from one low bush or swampy 

 thicket to another. 



The Swainp Sparrow is five inches and a half long, and seven inches 

 and a half in extent ; the back of the neck and front are black ; crown 

 bright bay, bordered with black ; a spot of yellowish white between the 

 e3'c and nostril ; sides of the neck and whole breast dark ash ; chin 

 white ; a streak of black proceeds from the lower mandible, and another 

 from the posterior angle of the eye ; back black, slightly skirted with 

 bay ; greater coverts also black, edged with bay ; wings and tail plain 

 brown ; belly and vent brownish white ; bill dusky above, bluish below ; 

 eyes hazel ; legs brown ; claws strong and sharp for climbing the reeds. 

 The female wants the bay on the crown, or has it indistinctly ; over the 

 eye is a line of dull white. 



Species XI. FRINGILLA MARITIMA. 



SEA-SIDE FINCH. 



[Plate XXXIV. Fig. 2.] 



Of this bird I can find no description. It inhabits the low, rush- 

 covered sea islands along our Atlantic coast, where I first found it ; 

 keeping almost continually within the boundaries of tide water, except 

 when long and violent east or north-easterly storms, with high tides, 

 compel it to seek the shore. On these occasions it cour.-<c.s along the 

 margin, and among the holes and interstices of the weeds and sea- 

 wrack, with a rapidity equalled only by the nimblest of our Sandpipers, 

 and very much in their manner. At these times also it roosts on the 

 ground, and runs about after dusk. 



This species derives its whole subsistence from the sea. I examined 

 a great number of individuals by dissection, and found their stomachs 

 universally filled with fragments of shrimps, minute shell fish, and 

 broken limbs of small sea crabs. Its flesh, also, as was to be expected, 

 tasted of fish, or was what was usually termed sedgy. Amidst the 

 recesses of these wet sea marshes it seeks the rankest growth of gra.ss, 

 and sea weed, and climbs along the stalks of the rushes with as much 

 dexterity as it runs along the ground, which is rather a singular circum- 

 stance, most of our climbers being rather awkward at running. 



The Sea-side Finch is six inches and a quarter long, and eight and a 



