BIRDS OF NEW YORK 297 



celerity of a mouse, and is not apt to take wing unless closely pressed. 

 In the breeding season it is usually associated with the Seaside sparrow 

 on the salt marsh, but prefers the dryer parts and builds its nest in the 

 tussocks on the bank of a ditch or in a drift left by the tide, rather than in 

 the grassier sites chosen by its neighbor. From some bit of driftwood 

 or a convenient stake its infrequent song may be heard morning and even- 

 ing. It is short and gasping, and only less husky than the somewhat 

 similar performance of the Seaside sparrow " (Doctor D wight). 



Passerherbulus nelsoni nelsoni (Allen) 

 Nelson Sparrow 



Plate 81 



Ammodromus caudacutus var. nelsoni Allen. Proc. Bost. Soc. N. H. 



1875. 17:293 

 Passerherbulus nelsoni nelsoni A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. 

 p. 258. No. 549.1 



nelsoni, to E. W. Nelson, American ornithologist 



Description. Similar to the Sharp-tailed sparrow, but smaller and 

 brighter; markings on the back sharper; the buff on throat, breast and 

 sides deeper, and the chest only indistinctly streaked with dusky. 



Length 5.5 inches; wing 2.1-2.3; tail 1. 8-2.1; exposed bill .41; depth 

 of bill .21 ; tarsus .8; middle toe .62. 



Distribution. The Nelson sparrow breeds from Great Slave lake and 

 central Alberta southward to Manitoba and northeastern South Dakota, 

 and winters on the Atlantic and gulf coasts from North Carolina to Florida 

 and Texas. During migration it is found from Maine to New York. In 

 this State the Nelson sparrow is a transient visitant but chiefly, if not 

 entirely, in the fall, not a single spring record being before me. It occurs 

 every autumn between the 22d of September and the 27th of October 

 along the shore of Lake Ontario, the central chain of lakes, and the Hudson 

 valley; Doctor Fisher's dates of migration at the mouth of the Croton 

 river being from September 25 to October 10. Ralph and Bagg reported 

 it October 12 at Oneida lake; and David Bruce, September 22, in Monroe 

 county; Eaton, October 7, Canandaigua; Embody, October 8 to 17, at 



