THE BIRDS OF NEW JERSEY. 247 



Young in first autumn. Similar to adult female, but buffy-white below, 

 brownish on the sides. 



Nest of grass on the ground or in low bushes ; eggs, four to five, pale blue, 

 unspotted, .80 x .60. 



Formerly a local summer resident, but now rare and of irregular 

 occurrence. 



Up to I860, and locally later, this bird was of regular occurrence on 

 the Atlantic coastal plain, but during the next twenty years it prac- 

 tically disappeared from this region and is now restricted to the Missis- 

 sippi Valley, except in the case of occasional stragglers. 



The late Dr. S. W. Woodhouse wrote to Mr. Rhoads (Cassinia, 1904, 

 p. 23) that from 1840 to 1850 it was common in Camden county, and 

 Mr. C. S. Galbraith informed Mr. Chapman 1 that in 1851 it was a 

 common summer resident at Hoboken. Audubon mentions that it was 

 plentiful at Salem in his time, but that it did not occur in the more 

 sandy parts of the State. So common was it that most early authors 

 did not take the trouble to mention, in detail, the localities in which 

 they had found it, and so the above constitute practically all that we 

 have of the original distribution of the bird in New Jersey. 



In 1868 Dr. C. C. Abbott 2 reported it as a rare migrant, and we 

 have, then, no record of its occurrence until the capture of a male 

 June 4th, 1880, at Princeton, by J. F. Cowan, and two at Stoutsburg, 

 June 14th, of the same year, by W. E. D. Scott, all in Princeton Col- 

 lege Collection (Babson). One young bird, shot at Maurice River, 

 September 18th, 1890, was obtained by Mr. W. L. Baily from a Reed- 

 bird gunner, and this closes the record of the bird in New Jersey until 

 1904, when we have the startling fact of its breeding again in the 

 State. 



Mr. W. D. W. Miller, of the American Museum of Natural History, 

 New York, found a pair of birds evidently at home in a grass field 

 near Plainileld, July 3d, 1904, and the next day discovered two young, 

 one of which was secured. The bird apparently did not return to the 

 vicinity in the following years, so the hope that this might be the be- 

 ginning of the bird's return to its former home has not been realized. 



Mr. S. N. Rhoads has discussed the disappearance of this bird quite 

 fully in his paper "Exit the Dickcissel" (Cassinia, 1903, pp. 17-28). 



1 Auk, 1891, p. 395. 



2 Birds of N. J. in Cook's Geol. of N. J. 



