30 NORTil AMKUICAN UIKUS. 



mounts suiiie low twig, expiuids its tail-t'eatliers, ami gives forth a very 

 sprightly trill that eclioes tlirough tliu swampy thicket with an ell'ect which, 

 once noticed and identified witli the p(!i't'ormer, is not lii^ely to be ever niis- 

 tixken. Xnttall calls this song lond, sweet, and plaintive. It is to my ear 

 more sprightly than pathetic, and has a peculiarly ventriloquistic ellect, as 

 if tiie performer were at a much greater distance than he really is. 



Tiieir food, when tliey first arrive, and that which tliey feed to tiieir young, 

 consists very largely of insects, prim'ii)ally coleopterous ones, with such few 

 seeds as they can glean. After the breeding-season, when their young can 

 take care of themselves, they eat almost exclu.sively the rijiened seeds of the 

 coarse water grasst^s anil sedges. Tliey are very devoted to their young, and 

 often display great solicitude for their safety, even when able to take care of 

 themselves, and often expose themselves to dangers they carefully avoid at 

 other times, and are thus more easily procured. At all other times they are 

 difficult to shoot, running, as they do, through the gra.ss and tangled thickets, 

 and rarely rising on tlie wing. They dive from thicket to thicket with great 

 rapidity, and even when wounded have a wonderful power of running and 

 hiding themselves. 



Mr. Audubon met with them, during autumn and winter, among the flat 

 sand-bars of the Mississippi, wliich are overgrown with rank grasses. Though 

 not in flocks, their numliers were immense. They fed on grass-seeds and 

 insects, often wading for the latter in sliallow water in the manner of the 

 Trinyidcv,, and when wounded and forced into the water swimming off to 

 the nearest shelter. He also met with these birds abundantly dispersed in 

 the swamps of Cuyaga Lake, as well as among those along the Illinois Iliver 

 in the sununer, and in the winter up tiic Arkansas IMver. 



Mr. Townsend oliserved these birds on the head-waters of the Upper Mis- 

 soiu'i, but did not meet with them beyond. 



In Maine, Mr. Boardman gives it as a regular summer visitant at Calais, 

 arriving there as early as March, becoming connnon in May, and breeding in 

 that locality. rrofe.s.sor Verrill found it in Western Maine, a summer visitant 

 and breeding, but did not regard it as common. From my own experience, in 

 the neigiiborhood of Boston, I should have said the same as to its infrequency 

 in Eastern Massaciiusetts, yet in certain localities it is a very abundant sum- 

 mer resident. Mr. William Brewster has found it breeding in large num- 

 bers in the marshes of Fresh Pond, where it arrives sometimes as early as 

 the latter part of Marcli, and where it remains until ^oveml)er. In the 

 western part of the State it is more commor. as a migratory bird, and has not 

 been fouiul, in any numbers, stojjping to breed. Mr. Allen never met with 

 any later than May 25. Tiiey were observed to be in company with tlie 

 Water Thrush, and to be in every way as atjuatic in their habits. In the 

 autunui he again met with it from the last of September through October, 

 always in bushy marshes or wet ])lac( s. j\Ir. ^Icllwraith states that in the 

 vicinity of Hamilton, Ontario, it is a common summer resident, breeding 



