SPECIES 10. FRINGILLA PALUSTRIS. 

 SWAMP SPARROW. 



[Plate XXII. Fig. 1.] 







Passer palustris, BARTRAM, p. 291. PEALE'S Museum, JV*o. 6569. 



THE history of this obscure and humble species is short and 

 uninteresting. Unknown or overlooked by the naturalists of 

 Europe it is now for the first time introduced to the notice of 

 the world. It is one of our summer visitants, arriving in Penn- 

 sylvania early in April, frequenting low grounds, and river 

 courses; rearing two, and sometimes three broods in a season j 

 and returning to the south as the cold weather commences. 

 The immense cypress swamps and extensive grassy flats of the 

 southern states, that border their numerous rivers, and the rich 

 rice plantations abounding with their favourite seeds and suste- 

 nance, appear to be the general winter resort, and grand annual 

 rendezvous, of this and all other species of Sparrow that remain 

 with us during summer. From the river Trent in North 

 Carolina, to that of Savannah, and still farther south, I found 

 this species very numerous; not flying in flocks, but skulking 

 among the canes, reeds, and grass, seeming ehy and timorous, 

 and more attached to the water than any other of their tribe. 

 In the month of April numbers pass through Pennsylvania to 

 the northward, which I conjecture from the circumstance of 

 finding them at. that season in particular parts of the woods, where 

 during the rest of the year they are not to be seen. The few 

 that remain frequent the swamps, and reedy borders of our creeks 

 and rivers. They form their nest in the ground, sometimes in a 

 tussock of rank grass, surrounded by water, and lay four eggs of 

 a dirty white, spotted with rufous. So late as the fifteenth of 

 August, I have seen them feeding their young that were scarce- 



