SPARROWS 433 



The species in question is a bird of the wet meadows and 

 sedgy, rushj marshes, the reedy borders of ponds and streams 

 and similar situations, and in such places locally common in 

 almost every section of Maine as summer residents. While in 

 the spring and more particularly the fall migration they swarm 

 in such localities, they also occur in migration in dryer localities 

 such as roadside thickets, fields, hedgerows and similar places. 



The earliest I have known the species near Bangor in spring 

 is March twentieth, usually about April sixth to tenth, and 

 these dates are earlier by considerable than the earlier dates 

 given for southern Maine, (about April twelfth. Brown) or 

 even Massachusetts and Sing Sing, New York, dates, the locality 

 where they are found so early being the same place where the 

 Short- billed Marsh Wrens are found, near Bangor. In fall 

 they linger through October, possibly later, and it would not 

 astonish me to have an occasional individual reported in win- 

 ter, though as yet such has not been the case. 



That many of the Sparrows found in swamps are Song Spar- 

 rows, erroneously reported by some observers as Swamp Spar- 

 rows, seems certain, but there need be no mistaking the real 

 Swamp Sparrow when its song is heard, far different from the 

 Song Sparrow's effort, being a clear, monotonous "weet-weet- 

 weet-weet-weet-weet-weet " or " peet-peet-peet-peet-peet-peet." 

 The alarm note is a "tchip" or "tcheep" with a metallic ring. 



Though generally placed on the ground in a bunch of sedges 

 or grasses in a meadow, the nests g,re also sometimes a few 

 inches from the ground, even a foot up, in a low bush or shrub 

 bordering a swale. Many nests have the dry grasses and sed- 

 ges arched together over them while others are not arched. 

 Practically all the nests I have seen were composed of dry 

 grass blades and stems, sedge leaves and weed stems, lined with 

 sedges and grasses. A nest found June 3, 1905, was placed in 

 a tussock of sedge in a wet meadow. This nest was five and a 

 half inches deep externally by one and three-quarters internally, 

 while its external diameter was five and a half and the internal 



