140 PROCEEDINGS MANCHESTER INSTITUTE 



Transition zone. Mr. C. F. Goodhue was the first to make 

 known the fact that Henslow's Sparrow is a regular summer 

 resident of New Hampshire (see R. Deane, 'ySa). He found it 

 in small numbers in certain meadows about Webster, and the 

 adjacent towns of Boscawen and Salisbury, over 25 years ago, 

 and observed a nest of four young birds on August 16, 1877, at 

 the last named place. This record has remained the only pub- 

 lished instance of the bird's presence in the state, though H. D. 

 Minot, in his " Land and Game Birds of New England," ('77) 

 states that he had "suspicions * * that they occur in at 



least one spot among the White Mountains." More recently, 

 however, Mr. G. H. Thayer writes me that " on the ist of Au- 

 gust, several years ago," his father "shot a Henslow's Spar- 

 row, and saw two others high up in the Walpole hills some ten 

 miles " northwest of Keene, in a small isolated wet place, grown 

 with rank grass and small bushes, in the midst of a wide ex- 

 panse of open hill pasture, at about 1,000 feet altitude ; he has 

 also noted the bird at Dublin in June, 1902, and at Hancock and 

 Bennington. Mr. R. Hoffmann has also observed the bird on 

 one or two occasions near the same locality, at Alstead. Else- 

 where in the state, I know of its presence only at Wonalancet, 

 on the intervale at the foot of Mt. Passaconaway. Here, on 

 July 14 and 15, 1899, I observed a pair evidently settled, in a 

 small cold marsh, partly carpeted with sphagnum, and grown 

 up with sedges and w r hite hellebore. On the tops of the helle- 

 bores the male would sit and sing incessantly, but only once did 

 I observe what must have been his mate. I have been unable 

 to visit this spot since to discover if it is regularly inhabited by 

 the birds. 

 Dates : April 17 to August. 



175. Ammodramus caudacutus (Gmel.). SHARP- 

 TAILED SPARROW. 



A summer resident of the salt marshes on the limited coastal 

 strip of the southeastern part of the state. Dr. Jonathan 

 Dwight, Jr., ('87) states that true caudacutus breeds as far north 

 as Portsmouth. Mr. William Brewster ('78) also mentions a 

 specimen in his collection taken at Rye Beach, on August 20, 



