Vol. XIII1 
1896 J 
Dwight, The Sharp-tailed Sparrotvs. 
275 
and we can only suppose they come from unknown breeding 
grounds. When we realize that nelsoni has not been recorded as 
breeding east of about 87° W. long, while subvirgatus has not 
been found west of about 70° W. long., there is ample ground for 
such supposition. 
Distribution. 
Ammodramus candacutus is restricted in the breeding season to 
the salt marshes of the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Massachu- 
setts. North of the latter named State, in the limited marshes 
of the New Hampshire and Maine coasts, it is probable that 
subvirgatus would be found. In fact a few stragglers have been 
secured that, singularly enough, approach more nearly to nelsoni 
than to caudacutus as would naturally be expected. One speci- 
men is from Cambridge, Mass., May 31, another from Revere, 
Mass., June 7, and a third from North Madison, Conn., June 9. 
These birds may have been late migrants but the probability is 
they were breeding. It is obvious therefore that breeding speci- 
mens from the Maine coast are greatly to be desired. A few 
caudacutus linger through the winter as far north as New Jersey 
(Stone, Birds E. Pa. and N. J., 1894, 114), the bulk passing to 
the South Atlantic States and even reaching Tarpon Springs, 
Florida, on the Gulf coast (Scott, Auk, VI, 1889, 322). 
A. c. nelsoni has been sparingly found during the breeding sea- 
son in Northern Illinois, in Wisconsin, in Minnesota, in Kansas, 
in the Dakotas, and in Manitoba. It seems to be a compara- 
tively rare species and spring records are few and far between. 
Large numbers of migrants are found, however, at many points 
on the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to South Carolina, they 
have been taken at Corpus Christi, Texas (Chapman, Bull. Am. 
Mus. N. H., Ill, No. 2, 223), and a straggler to the vicinity of 
San Francisco, California, was described as a new race, to which 
reference has already been made. It is probable that the birds 
found at Galveston (Nehrling, Bull. N. O. C., VII, 1882, 12) 
were of this race and not caudacutus as recorded, and the same 
may be true of the record of caudacutics for Ottawa, Ontario (E. E. 
Thompson, Auk, VI, 1889, 204). 
