BIKDS OF INDIANA. 945 



as far as I have been able to determine, of two insect-like notes; it may 

 be represented by the syllables, stitch, lick, uttered in quick succes- 

 sion, and once, when I had fired several shots without hitting any- 

 thing, I thought the bird said, "Such luck, such luck." The notes, as 

 has been said, are insect-like in character, especially the first one, 

 which is very lisping, the last note having more volume. The notes 

 are not loud, but may be heard at some distance, and are somewhat 

 ventriloquistic, seeming to come from some general direction, but not 

 from any definite spot, so that it is impossible to locate the birds easily 

 by their notes." Mr. Nehrling, N". A. Birds, Pt. X., p. 88, gives its 

 song as, "Sit-sit-sit-sit-ser-it." Lynds Jones says: "The song is a few 

 short and rapidly-uttered notes, something like, 'i-tse, tse-tsip." Mr. 

 L. Whitney Watkins, May 12, 1894, added this species to the Michigan 

 list, and May 30 found a nest containing five eggs in Jackson County, 

 Mich. June 8 the female was shot as she was leaving the nest, and 

 identified. The nest was in an open marsh, bordering a lake. It 

 was placed in a tuft of grass about four inches above the wet ground, 

 and is neatly, though loosely, constructed of coarse grasses and sedges, 

 lined with finer ones. The eggs average .72 by .59 inches, and are 

 white, with small reddish specks so numerous as to form an imperfect 

 wreath about the large end. Incubation was well advanced. The nest 

 was hardly different from one of a Maryland Yellow-throat, found 

 on the same day in the same locality (Proc., I. A. S., 1894, p. 74). 

 Mr. James B. Purdy more recently has recorded taking a bird and the 

 nest and eggs at Plymouth, Mich., July 27, 1893 ("The Auk," Vol. 

 XIV., 1897, p. 220). 



Mr. Eliot Blackwelder noted five of these birds in Cook County, 

 111., April 16, 1896. Mr. W. 0. Wallace took a male in a cherry orch- 

 ard at Wabash, Ind., April 26, 1897. Mr. Robert Ridgway found it 

 exceedingly numerous during the latter part of October, 1882, in dead 

 grass in the damp portions of meadows in Richland County, 111. (B. 

 of 111., I., p. 255). It therefore arrives from April 16 to May 10 and 

 remains until late in October. Prof. W. W. Cooke says it sometimes 

 winters in southern Illinois (Report Bird Mig. Miss. Valley, p. 191). 



213. (548). Ammodramus leconteii (AuD.). 



LeConte's Sparrow. 



Adult. Tail feathers, narrow, sharp-pointed, the outer ones much 



the shortest, light-brown, shaded with grayish, centers very dark; bill, 



small; culmen, slightly depressed in the middle; crown, black, feathers 



sometimes bordered with brown, divided by a middle stripe of whitish 



60 GEOL. 



