130 



THE OOLOGIST 



The Dusky Seaside Sparrow. 



Passerherbulus Nigrescens. 



For the past three years every time 

 I have taken up the Chapman's Hand 

 Book it has invariably opened to page 

 394 and the first thing that my eye al- 

 ways saw after the description of 551 

 Dusky Sparrow were the words, "Nest 

 and Eggs Unknown," this happened 

 so often that it became monotonous 

 and I decided that I would try and 

 change this. A bird whose range cov- 

 ered only a few square miles, and one 

 that had been known to science for 

 forty-one years, and whose nest had 

 never been found, was a "slam" on the 

 ability of us true Oologists. That its 

 nest had been hunted for diligently by 

 several well known Oologists I knew, 

 so I knew that when I finally decided 

 to make a search for it that my work 

 was cut out, but the opportunity pre- 

 senting itself and feeling '"lucky" 1 

 decided to make a strenuous effort to 

 locate a nest. From a trip I had once 

 made on the East Coast of Florida lat- 

 er in the summer I knew that the nat- 

 ural obstacles of a trip of this kind at 

 this season of the year would be great, 

 especially in view of the fact that 1 

 was in poor health generally and un- 

 der the doctor's care. Hearing that 

 my old "side kick" and collecting part- 

 ner of several years in Micanopy, 

 Henry Simpson was on a vacation and 

 not knowing what to do to kill time I 

 invited him to meet me at a small vil- 

 lage on the Indian River and help me 

 on the trip as I was afraid to venture 

 alone on the trip feeling weak as I 

 did. He gladly consented to accom- 

 pany me and then I knew for a cer- 

 tainty that if the Dusky Seaside Spar- 

 row laid eggs we would capture a few. 



Starting on May 17th I met him as 

 per schedule and as there was a gale 

 blowing on the Indian River and no 

 boats of any kind or size was ventur- 

 ing out, I chartered a good large yacht 



and outfitted it for a ten day cruise as 

 I figured that that would be long 

 enough for the trip. Being held up 

 by the weather I decided to visit Salt 

 Lake near Titusville, where Mr. Chap- 

 man had found a few birds, we repair- 

 ed there on the train and hiring a 

 buggy we drove out there and put in 

 a day in hunting the marshes of this 

 Lake We saw no birds of the species 

 we were looking for here. On our re- 

 turn to our boat and the weather be- 

 ing some better the next day we start- 

 ed out on the River and for a week we 

 cruised the entire length of Merritts 

 Island, visiting every place where 

 there had ever been any records of 

 the Dusky Seaside Sparrow, but find- 

 ing none at any of them. We run into 

 a little creek on the morning of May 

 21st and run the boat aground and 

 taking the small skiff rowed up the 

 creek in the shallow water and about 

 100 yards up I saw a Black Sparrow 

 that I felt at once was the one we were 

 looking for, hastily rowing in closer I 

 killed the bird and upon dissecting 

 same found it to be a male evidently 

 in full breeding. This sure made us 

 feel good so we plunged into the marsh 

 which stretched for miles and miles 

 away to the highlands of the Island. 

 When in a few yards, the Dusky Spar- 

 rows began to get up all about and 

 I guess we saw at least 20 birds at 

 one time setting about in a dense 

 growth of G-lasswort (Salicornia ma- 

 cronota) which carpeted the Island 

 as far as the eye could see. We lost 

 four hours in searching for nests in 

 the higher bunches of this vegetation 

 and had about given up hopes of find- 

 ing a nest. As we ate dinner we dis- 

 cussed the subject very thoroughly 

 and Simpson had about made up his 

 mind that this species was "ovivivipar- 

 ous" and did not lay eggs at all but 

 had young like an animal, it did not 

 seem possible that with the vigorous 



