78 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



SHARP-TAILED SPARROW. 



A.. O. V. ^o. 549. (Americanuj caudacutuj.) 



R.ANGE. 



The Atlantic sea coast from southern Maine to Georcria, breeding from 

 New Jersey northwards. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Length 5.25 inches; extent 7.5 inches; tail 2 inches. Bill yellowish 

 below and brown above. Feet brown. Eye brown. 



Male and female. — Head brown streaked with black. A broad stripe of 

 buff through middle of crown. Line from bill over the eye and down the 

 side of the neck a bright yellowish buff. Cheeks ashy, bordered below by 

 a yellowish buff band, which extends from the bill downward. Back, rump 

 and tail olive brown. Wings brown, the secondaries and coverts being 

 edged with white. Throat white, bordered on sides with a black line. 

 Breast and sides buff streaked with black. The remaining under parts 

 white. Tail rounded and each feather sharply pointed. 



Young. — More yellowish above and below. 



NEST AND EGGS. 



The nest is always on a salt marsh, and is generally fastened to the 

 marsh grass, sometimes being as high as a foot from the ground, and under 

 a piece of dried sea weed. It is composed of loosely woven pieces of 

 marsh grass and is rather bulky for the bird. They generally raise two 

 broods in a season, the first set of eggs being laid the latter part of May, 

 the last in July. They lay from three to six eggs thickly sprinkled and 

 specked with reddish brown, and a few black spots. 



HABITS. 



The Sharp-tailed Sparrow or Finch are never hunted, and will not al- 

 ls different from other sparrows, in low you to get a good view of them 

 that because of his habits he might at close range. The ease and rapid- 

 almost be classed with the waders ity with which they thread their 

 instead of sparrows. They are found way through the closely grown 

 exclusively about the salt marshes reeds is marvelous, and you have to 

 on the sea coast, and feed largely walk at a rapid gait in order to 

 on minute marine insects. I have make them take wing. Their flight 

 had excellent opportunities for study- is peculiar. They fly low and with 

 ing these birds in the marshes about tail drooping, and hardly raise their 

 Narragansett Bay where they are wings above the level of the body, 

 very abundant. They are very shy, They go but a few yards in the air 

 which seems very strange as they before dropping into the marsh grass 



