SWAMP SPARROW. 
503 
song is continued till late in the morning, and after sun- 
set in the evening. This reverberating tone is again 
somewhat similar to that of the Chipping Sparrow, but 
far louder and more musical. In the intervals he de- 
scends into the grassy tussucks and low bushes in quest 
of his insect food, as well as to repose out of sight ; 
and, while here, his movements are as silent and secret 
as those of a mouse. The rice plantations and river 
swamps are their favorite hibernal resorts in Louisiana, 
Georgia, and the Carolinas ; here they are very numer- 
ous, and skulk among the canes, reeds, and rank grass, 
solicitous of concealment, and always exhibiting their 
predilection for watery places. In the breeding-season, 
before the ripening of many seeds, they live much on the 
insects of the marshes in which they are found, particu- 
larly the smaller coleopterous kinds, Carabi and Curcu - 
Hones . 
They form their nests in the ground, often in the shel- 
ter of some dry tussuck of sedge or other rank grass, in 
the midst of the watery marsh in which they dwell. 
Their eggs are 4 or 5, of a dirty white, spotted with red- 
dish brown. They probably raise 2 or 3 broods in the 
season, being equally prolific with our other Sparrows. 
They express extreme solicitude for their young, even 
after they are fully fledged and able to provide for them- 
selves ; the young also, in their turn, possess uncommon 
cunning and agility, running and concealing themselves 
in the sedge of the wet meadows. They are quite as 
difficult to catch as field mice, and seldom on these emer- 
gencies attempt to take wing. We have observed one 
of these sagacious birds dart from one tussuck to another, 
and at last dive into the grassy tuft in such a manner, or 
elude the grasp so well, as seemingly to disappear or 
burrow into the earth. Their robust legs and feet, as 
