126 



KEY AND DESCRIPTION 



streaks along the sides ; the belly is white ; the under tail 

 feathers are nearly a half inch shorter than the middle pair. 

 This is a western species of fields and marshes. 



Length, 5 ; wing, 2 (lJ-2;) ; tail, 2} ; tarsus, | ; culmen, |. Interior 

 United States ; breeding from Minnesota nortli to Manitoba, and winter- 

 ing from Iowa to Florida and Texas. 



24. Sharp-tailed Sparrow (549. Am,m6dramus caudacutus). — 

 A common, salt-marsh, sharp-tailed, streaky, olive-gray spar- 

 row, with distinct orange-brown 

 bands on the head, above and 

 below the eye. The buffy lower 

 parts are darkly streaked on the 

 sides and breast, but the throat 

 and belly are nearly white. This 

 bird prefers to escape from a 

 person by running and hiding 

 among the grasses and reeds of 

 the salt marshes (where it 

 dwells), rather than to use its 

 wings in flight. 



Length, 5^ ; wing, 2^ (^-^) ; tail, 

 2; tarsus, |; culmen, J. Marshes of 

 the Atlantic coast ; breeding from 

 North Carolina to Maine, and winter- 

 ing along the south Atlantic and Gulf 

 States. Nelson's Sparrow (549". A. 

 c. nelsoni) is a slightly smaller variety with the feathers of the back 

 darker in the center and with wider whitish edges, and the sides, breast, 

 and throat darker in tint, but much less streaked. Fresh marshes of the 

 interior; breeding from Illinois northward, and wintering from Texas 

 to South Carolina ; accidental in New England. The Acadian Sharp- 

 tailed Sparrow (540''. A. c. subvirgatus) differs in having the sides, breast, 

 and throat more creamy in tint and faintly streaked with gray rather 

 than black. A salt marsh form ; Nova Scotia to South Carolina. 



25. Seaside Sparrow (550. Ammddramus maiitimiis). — A 

 common, salt-marsh, sharp-tailed, slightly streaked, grayish- 

 brown sparrow, with a little yellow at bend of wing and in 

 front of eye. The white throat and middle of the belly and 



Sharp-tailed Sparrow 



