I-MN- III.-. M'AKKoU ._,;,;, 



|rts. This song is often uttered while tho bird takes a short flight 

 upward; it then drops down aptin into the tangled weed* and gTMMC, 

 where it is almost m.. follow it" (Mull. Nutt. ()rn. Club, vi, 



548. Ammodramu* leconiei ( A </. ). I.K< ojrrt'8r.iaRow. Ad. 

 No yellow before the yo or on thu U-iul <>f the \\\nj ; broad ochraceous-hutT 

 line over the eye, and a crcuin Unl line through the center of the blackish 

 crown; nape rufous-brown, each feather with a snmll black eentrul spot anil 

 an why U>rder; back black, the feathers margined first by rufous, then . r mn- 

 butf mid whitish ; tail grayish brown, with a sliirlit nit-u- tin_'f, darker along 

 tlie ahaft: the feathers narrow and sharply pointed, the outer ones much the 

 shortcut; breast and (tides tinged with butfy, and more or less streaked with 

 black ; belly white. L., 5-00; W., iKH); L, -85. 



Kmy*. u Great I'lains and more western prairies, breeding from Dakota, 

 MinnoBota, etc., to Manitoba, migrating southward and eastward, in winter, 

 through Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, etc., to South Carolina, and Gulf States from 

 Florida to Texas" (Kidgw.). 



JKut, of fine grasses, on the ground. Aj/y, three, delicate pink, lightly 

 potted with brownish and black near the larger end, -75 x -50 (Thompson). 



My experience on the coast of Texas with this elusive little Spar- 

 row conforms with that of most observers, and tin- few specimens I 

 found were in wet marshes. Mr. L. M. Loomis, however, tells us that 

 at Cluv-ter. South Carolina, where Leconte's Sparrow is a locally com- 

 mon winter visitant, it shows a marked preference for dry "old fields" 

 of l>rx>m sedge (Auk. ii, IHHo. p. 190). 



Few birds are more difficult to ftu>h. It exhibits a rail-like disin- 

 clination to take winj;. and. flying low and frelily. makes for the nearest 

 over. Krnest E. Thompson records it as an abundant summer H-M- 

 dent in the willow sloughs and grassy flat.- of Manitoba, and describes 

 its call-notes as a thin, sharp, ventriloipiial ////. and a single, long- 

 drawn bizz ; while its sonp. which is delivered from some low perch a 

 little above the grass, is a tiny, husky, double-noted reese m->- 

 thin a sound and so creaky, that I believe it i> usually attributed to a 



649. Ammodramus caudacutua (fim??.}. SiiARp-TAii.tn SPAR- 

 ROW. Ad. Genernl r<>l..r <>f the upper purts a brownish olivr-irn-en ; crown 

 olive brown, with a blue-gray lino through it center; irray ear-ooverts, in- 

 eloned by ocnraceous-huff lines, one nfwhieh jios.^^ over the eye and one 

 down the side of tin- throat; feathers of the back margined with grayixh and 

 sometime* whitish: bend of the wing yellow; tail feathers narrow and 

 sharply j-.in'.-d. the outer tViithers much the shortest; breast ami side* 

 washed with butfy, paler in summer, and ,H*tin.t/y xtrcakcd with black ; 

 middle of the throat and belly white or whitinh. "L..5-&:.; \V., -j-30; T., 1-0; 

 B^-60"(Dwight). 



