334 NOTES ON THE 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Crown chestnut, with a median and two lateral, or supercil- 

 liary ash colored stripes; each feather above streaked centrally 

 with black; back with narrow streakes of black; beneath 

 white, with a maxillary stripe curving round behind the ear 

 coverts; a well defined band across the breast extending down 

 the sides; under tail coverts brownish yellow; maxillary stripe 

 margined above and below with lines of black spots; throat, 

 upper part of breast, and sides of body, with streaks of black, 

 smallest in the middle of the former; a ctiestnut stripe back of 

 the ear streaked with black; the pectoral bands are sometimes 

 paler. 



Length, 5.60; wing, 2.60. 



Habitat, North America at large. 



MELOSPIZA GEOReiANA (Latham). (584.) 

 SWAMP SPARROW. 



The local habits of the Swamp Sparrow are such that none 

 but a close observer could form any correct idea of its relative 

 numbers. It will have become installed in its summer haunts, 

 and engaged in the building of its nests, or even in somewhat 

 advanced incubation, before we are aware of its presence, 

 unless considerable vigilance has been maintained through the 

 early spring. For many successive years I failed to detect its 

 earliest arrival, and have settled into the opinion that it was 

 rather a late sparrow in its migrations, notwithstanding my 

 knowledge of its late depaiture in autumn. But a friend who 

 had no special interest in ornithology was fond of duck shoot- 

 ing that brought him much in the way of the incoming birds 

 of the spring, and I suggested to him that he keep one end of 

 his bag for "small fry " and he kindly collected specimens of 

 many species of exceeding interest to me, and to local orni- 

 thological science in general, amongst which was this bird, 

 obtained on the 13th of March. He was an exceedingly modest 

 man, and peremptorily forbid my putting his name in print, 

 which injunction for about one-fifth of a century I have faith- 

 fully observed, but now that his name has already leaked out, 

 I feel relieved of my obligation, and I am impelled to state here 

 that his name was John Smith. I will have the burden no longer. 

 The world shall know who he is. From that day forward I 

 have been able to date the average time of the arrival of the 

 Swamp Sparrow the 1st of April — 1864, March 29; 1867, April 

 5th; 1870, April 2d; 1875, March 30th; 1878, March 13th. These 

 dates are abundantly corroborated by corresponding observa- 



