218 LAND BIRDS 
Nest: Placed mm salt marsh mud, raised about 6 inches from the 
ground; made of weed stalks, grass, horsehair, or feathers. 
Eggs: 3; light blue, marked with lavender specks; reddish brown 
blotches principally at the larger end. Size 0.78 X 0.58. 
Tue Belding Marsh Sparrow is abundant on the 
salt marshes near the coast of Southern California from 
Santa Barbara south to Lower California. It replaces 
the Bryant marsh sparrow of the San Francisco Bay 
region. Like the latter, its nest is a thin mat of grass 
on the ground as near the edge of the marsh as the tide 
will allow. In the vicinity of National City, San Diego 
County, the nests outnumber those of any other sparrow. 
Many of them are placed on tussocks of grass, which 
raise them several inches above the ground. Even then 
they are usually quite damp, and we might expect to 
find the eggs addled, which they doubtless would be 
were not the water salt. In May, or early June, the 
newly hatched, naked, pinky grayish nestlings are to be 
found wriggling their wrinkled necks and opening their 
tiny mouths for food. This consists of the insects picked 
up from the wet vegetation, and the seeds of marsh 
plants given at first by regurgitation. By June 20 the 
young sparrows are looking out for themselves, secure 
in their protective coloring in the long grass. 
544. LARGE-BILLED SPARROW. — Ammodramus 
rostratus. 
Famity: The Finches, Sparrows, etc. 
Length: 5.30. 
Adults: Upper parts light grayish brown, indistinctly streaked with 
darker: under parts streaked with rusty brown: bill long and 
swollen and regularly curved from the base. 
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