Byrds 
THE IPSWICH SPARROW (AMMODRAMUS PRINCEPS) AND 
ITS SUMMER HOME. 
BY JONATHAN DWIGHT, JR., M.D. 
DiscoVERED among the sand-hills of Ipswich, Massachusetts, by Mr. 
C. J. Maynard, and the single specimen obtained by him December 4, 
1868, wrongly identified as Baird’s Sparrow of the far West by no less 
eminent an authority than Professor S. F. Baird, the Ipswich Sparrow, for 
a long time after it was recognized as a new species, enjoyed a reputation 
for rarity which later observations have not sustained. Gradually the few 
energetic collectors who have cared to face the wintry winds that sweep 
the desolate stretches of low sand-hills fringing so much of our Atlantic 
coast, have proved the bird to be a regular migrant or winter visitor, found 
more or less abundantly from Maine to Georgia. For nearly sixteen years 
after its discovery there was no clue to its breeding haunts until, in 1884, a 
single summer specimen was obtained from Sable Island, Nova Scotia. 
Until ten years later no successful effort was made to solve the mystery 
shrouding the summer home of a shy and silent species that disappeared 
from our shores with the earliest breath of spring, not to return again before 
the frosts of autumn had browned the waving clumps of coarse grass where 
it makes its winter home. It was in the hope of reading some of the 
unturned pages of the life-history of this interesting Sparrow that I visited 
Sable Island during the summer of 1894. A long personal acquaintance 
with the bird, added to my recent observations, enables me to present a 
comprehensive account of a species which, a New England discovery 
itself, annually imitates the Pilgrim Fathers in landing on New England’s 
shores; and Iam confident my brother ornithologists, of that part of the 
country at least, will feel a particular interest in the new facts I am able 
to present regarding a species so peculiarly their own. 
Perhaps one of the most interesting results of my trip has been to 
establish the fact that the Ipswich Sparrow is resident on Sable Island the 
whole year round. Moreover, it is the only land bird that makes its nest 
there, being known as the ‘ Gray Bird’ to the few inhabitants. As no other 
breeding grounds have ever been found (and careful search has been 
made by several observers), Sable Island may truly be called the home of 
