wintering from South Carolina southward to Florida and probably to Texas. Although 

 exceedingly abundant w^here it occurs, it is of all the common eastern birds one of the 

 least known to the general public, not only because its distribution is very local, but 

 especially because its habits screen the bird from casual observation. These birds take 

 but short and feeble flights when flushed. Usually they keep in the shelter of the reeds 

 and the rank salt herbage. Neither this nor the nearly allied Sea-side Sparrow is so 

 rare in New England as some suppose; "and as each one, like the Marsh Wren, colo- 

 nizes certain spots without settling others to all appearance equally eligible, the actual 

 numbers of the birds can scarcely be surmised." (Stearns.) 



This bird arrives in New England about the beginning of April and remains' until 

 some time in October. Early in June the first set of eggs is laid, and a second brood, 

 perhaps, is reared in July. The nest is placed in a tuft of marsh grass, "just out of the 

 way of the water — some instinct teaching the birds enough about tides to answer their 

 purpose." The nest is built of soft slender grasses, arranged in a circular form. It is 

 large for the bird, spacious and deep, and is softly lined with finer grasses. The eggs 

 measure about .75X.55, and are grayish-white, thickly and pretty evenly speckled 

 with brown. They cannot with certainty be distinguished from some eggs of the 

 Savanna Sparrow, nor readily from those of the nearly allied Sea-side Finch. 



The food consists mainly of seeds, and in spring and summer also of insects of 

 various kinds. 



In the interior of the country, especially in the fresh-water marshes of the Missis- 

 sippi valley, we find Nelson's Sparrow or Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow, Ammo- 

 dramus caudacutus nelsoni Allen, rather common. In northern Illinois, and near Lake 

 Koshkonong and in the Horicon Marshes in Wisconsin, this is an abundant summer 

 resident. This was the bird I met on the coast of Texas, in winter 1879 and 1880, and 

 which was mentioned as A. caudacutus in the Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological 

 Club (Vol. VIII, 1882, p. 12) in my article on the "Birds of South-eastern Texas." 



NAMES: Sharp-tailed Sparrow, Sharp-tailed Finch, Sharp-tailed Bunting, Shore Finch. — Uferfink (German). 



SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Oriolus caudacutus Gemel. (1788). Fringilla caudacuta Wils. (1811). Passem/a 

 caudacuta VkHI AMMODRAMUS CAUDACUTUS &vrAms. (X837). Fringilla littoraUs Hutt. (1832). 



DKSCRIPTION: "Upper parts, brownish-olivaceous. Head, brownish, streaked with black on the sides, and 

 a broad central stripe of ashy. Back, blotched with darker; edges of interscapular feathers and inner 

 secondaries, whitish, just exterior to a blackish sufiusion. A broad superciliary and maxillary stripe, 

 meeting behind the ashy ear-coverts, and a band across the upper breast, buff-yellow. The sides of 

 the throat with a brown stripe; the upper part of the breast and the sides of the body, streaked 

 with black; rest of under-parts, whitish. Female, similar." (B. B. & R.) 

 Length, 4.33 inches; wing, 2.27; tail, 2.06 inches. 



Colors of upiier parts in A. caudacutus nelsoni "usually very sharply contrasted, especially the 

 chalky-white streaks of back, as compared with the rich umber-brown ground-color." 



