Second Series. 



Vol. I. No. 3. 



Third Quarter, 1905 



A MAGAZINE OF NORTH AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY 



Published Quarterly at Floral Park, N. Y. | Price, $1.00 Per Year. 30 Cents Per Copy 



Published July 20th John Lewis Child s, Editob 



Plate V, Eggs of the Ipswich Sparrow 



(Passerculus princeps) 



By IV. E. Saunders 



THE nest with five eggs of Ipswich Sparrow was found by flushing the 

 bird while walking along the edge of a low bank which fell away to- 

 wards the lake which takes up a large portion of the interior of Sable 

 Island, (Canada). 



The set was complete when found and was taken the same day. 



The nest was perhaps a little better concealed than usual and was very 

 bulky, even for the Ipswich Sparrow, which normally builds a nest contain- 

 ing much thicker walls than the nests of the ordinary eastern ground-build- 

 ing Sparrows; it contained a considerable quantity of "eel grass", the local 

 name for a species of sea weed which washes up in great quantities in the 

 form of streamers about % inch wide; and as this wash on the edge of the 

 lake was only about fifteen yards away from the nest it was a very con- 

 venient material for this bird to use. 



This edging of eel grass around the lake and ponds of Sable Island was 

 quite a curious and interesting feature. It varied in width from a few inches 

 to two or three feet and its main point of interest lay in the fact that in it 

 the Semipalmated Plover (sEgialitis semipalmatd) makes its nest invari- 

 ably, so that when one came to a pair of these birds along the water's edge 

 he had only to walk along by the line of flotsam and look carefully for the 

 eggs. It happened that I was too early for the bulk of these birds but I suc- 

 ceeded in finding several nests, two of which had eggs. 



Searching for nests of the Ipswich Sparrow on Sable Island impresses 

 on one's mind a novel peculiarity in the construction of Sable Island. Ow- 



