26 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 



In the early spring this shy, quiet bird follows the coast northward to 

 its nesting grounds. In 1884, Robert Ridgway 1 suggested that a ser- 

 ies cf eggs from Sable Island, collected by J. P. Dodd in July, 1862, 

 might in reality be those of the Ipswich Sparrow. 



Immediately Dr. C. Hart Merriam 2 wrote to Rev. W. A. Des Brisay, 

 a resident missionary at Sable Island, and obtained a specimen of 

 the common "Gray Bird" of the Island. The fact that this proved to 

 be an Ipswich Sparrow added another link to the chain of accumula- 

 ting evidence . It remained for Dr. Jonathan D wight, Jr. , however, act- 

 ually to determine the breeding-haunts of this large pale-colored spar- 

 row. In 1894, Dr. Dwight visited Sable Island, remaining there from 

 the 28th of May till the 14th of June. During that time he found the 

 Ipswich Sparrow breeding there; he studied its song, its habits; he 

 collected sets of eggs and the cleverly hidden nests; and he learned 

 that some of these " Gray Birds" as they are called by the Life Savers 

 on Sable Island, are all the year residents, though most of them mi- 

 grate southward in the fall. 



Persistent search on the mainland of Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton, 

 on Prince Edward Island, and among the sand hills of the Magdalen 

 Islands has failed to reveal or even hint that the Ipswich Sparrow ever 

 breeds anywhere except on Sable Island. 



The bird is so small and so retiring that it has never attracted the 

 notice of the fishermen, hunters, and desperadoes, who for centuries, 

 just hew many no one can say, have frequented the island and brought 

 persecution or destruction to one or another kind of animal life. Al- 

 though neither man nor other living enemies disturb the bird, it does 

 seem seriously threatened by other factors. 



Since all of the individuals of this species breed on Sable Island, 

 is there a definite maximum of breeding pairs that can be supported? 

 Of course this must be answered in the affirmative, and on a bleak, 

 sterile island of about fifteen square miles in area, this maximum num- 

 ber cannot be very large and it must now be smaller than in the past 

 when Sable Island was much larger in size. But what of the future, 

 when more and more of the island disappears in the waves, till finally 

 it ceases to exist? Will the Ipswich Sparrow seek a new breeding- 

 ground, or is it a species grown so conservative that it cannot make 

 the change, and will vanish with its island he me? The writer makes 



iAuk, i. 292 (1884). 

 2 Auk, i. 390 (1884). 



