
SEA-SIDE ORNITHOLOGY. 229 
occupy every convenient cliff, or river bank, or ocean front, 
in whose suitable soil it could exeavate its necessary channel 
to a nest-hole. 
Along the shores of Connectieut and Rhode Island, and 
occasionally on those of our own State, two interesting little 
Ammodrami, the sharp-tailed, and the sea-side Finches, —so 
called, in our poverty of terms to properly designate Amer- 
ican forms having only a remote resemblance to that which 
they are intended to represent, —are species peculiarly char- > 
acteristic of the sea-shore and peculiar to our own continent, 
there being two Atlantic and one Pacific varieties. Their 
elongated and slender bills distinguishing them from all 
other American sparrows, their long legs extending in the 
stuffed specimen beyond their tail feathers, their short lat- 
eral elaws, their rounded wings and wedge-shaped tails com- 
posed of stiff lanceolate feathers, are all features eminently 
characteristic of sea-side life, and such as typify, only in a 
more marked degree, the true shore-birds. In fact in their 
habits they are not very unlike the true wader in many re- 
speets. Like them they feed upon marine insects and the 
smaller crustacea, keeping about the waters edge, walking 
upon the floating weeds and other substances raised by the 
tide, preferring this mode of life to a more inland residence, 
and only resorting to the uplands to feed upon grass and 
other seed when food fails them at the water's edge. They 
Were once quite common on our northern shores, but, so far 
as the writer knows, a large proportion have disappeared, 
with other summer shore-birds, probably driven away by the 
gunners and pleasure-seekers who now frequent their former 
haunts. I have met with none, north of New Bedford, since 
1840, although here and there in a few localities a few are yet 
to be found, as for instance, in the marshes of Charles River. 
Closely allied to the ammodrami is the Swamp Sparrow, 
common to the lowlands of the sea-side, but not peculiar to 
| them, and equally abundant in the lowlands of the interior, 
_#S far west as Wisconsin. It is found along our entire coast, 
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