BIRDS OF NEW YORK 487 



central New York, and it is fairly common as a winter resident in the 

 southeastern portion of the State, but in the principal breeding range of 

 the Adirondacks and Catskills it is only a summer resident. 



Cistothorus stellaris (Naumann) 

 Short-billed Marsh Wren 



Plate 102 



Troglodytes stellaris Naumann. Vogel Deutschl. 1823. 3. Table to p. 724 

 Troglodytes brevirostris DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 58, %■ 93 

 Cistothorus stellaris A. 0. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 342- No. 724 

 cistothorus, Gr., xtJTo?, shrub, and 6opstv, to run through; stellaris, Lat., starry, 

 speckled 



Description. Upper parts streaked v^ith. white, black, and ocherous; 

 wings and tail barred; under parts white washed with buffy on the breast, 

 sides and under tail coverts. This species may be distinguished from the 

 Long-billed marsh wren by its streaked- crown and entire upper parts, and 

 by its shorter bill. 



Length 4-4.5 inches; extent 6; wing 1.75; tail 1.5; bill .4. 



Distribution. The Short-billed marsh wren inhabits the austral zone 

 of eastern North America from southern Saskatchewan, southern Ontario 

 and southern Maine to eastern Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and northern 

 Delaware. It winters from southern Illinois and southern New Jersey 

 to the Gulf States. In New York this species is local in distribution and 

 uncommon in nearly all parts of the State except a few colonies in the 

 lower Hudson valley and in parts of central and western New York. It 

 has been reported as breeding at Green Island near Cohoes, June 12, 1875, 

 where E. S. Stebbins took its eggs for the Smithsonian collection; in central 

 New York by Fowler (Forest and Stream 6, 180); at Comwall-on-the- 

 Hudson, near the mouth of Moodna creek, in June 1882 (Meams, Atik 7, 

 56; Rowe, N. O. C. Bui. 8:179); at Gretna, in Dutchess county, June 23, 

 1897, by Lispenard Horton; in Onondaga county by A. W. Perrior; Cayuga 

 county by Rathbun and Wright; in the Tonawanda swamp. May 30, 1899, 

 by Grame P. Clarkson, from which locality a colony was also reported 

 by Langille in " Our Birds in Their Haunts " ; at Hebron by F. T. Pember; 



