42 
CIS T 0 THOR US PALUSTBIS. 
GENUS II. CISTOTHORUS. THE MARSH WRENS. 
Gen. Ch. Feet proportionately large, but the tarsus shorter than the middle toe and claw. Back, conspicuously 
streaked with white. 
The species included in this genus are quite small birds, which inhabit the grasses or reeds of fresh-water 
marshes. 
CISTOTHOBUS PALUSTBIS. 
Long-billed Marsb Wren. 
Cistothorus palustris Baird, Birds of North America, 1858, 364. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Sp. Ch. Size, small. Eorm, slender. Bill, equal in length to the head, quite slender. Sternum, somewhat 
stoutly built. Tongue, thin, narrow and acuminate, ciliated for one-third of the terminal length. These cilia form 
a bifid tuft at the end, and two on each side about five-hundredths of an inch nearer the base. 
Color. Adult. Above, light reddish-brown, with the middle of the back and sides of the top of the head, 
black, which is darkest on the back; this patch on the back is triangular in form being broadest between the 
shoulders; there is a white line in the centre of many of the feathers. There is also a superciliary stripe of white 
which extends well down on the sides of the neck. The wings and tail are dark brown barred with a color similar 
to that of the back. Beneath, pure white with the sides and flanks, reddish-brown. There is sometimes a buff 
suffusion on the breast. Lores and ear coverts, dusky. The shoulders are streaked with white. Under wing 
coverts, white; under tail coverts, white, barred with brown and rufous. 
This is the usual adult plumage both North and South, but a specimen from Florida, taken in April, 1872, on 
Spruce Creek, differs in having the top of the head and entire upper parts, black with scarcely any rufous. The 
under surface is pale buff, barred on the sides of the neck, breast, and flanks with dusky. The under wing coverts 
are also pale buff’. 
The young, even in the nesting plumage, are scarcely different from the adult excepting that there are fewer 
streaks of white on the back. Sexes similar. Neck, feet and bill, brown, the latter lighter at the base of the lower 
mandible. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
The Long-billed Marsh Wrens may be at once distinguished from the Short-billed by their larger size and 
longer bill. They are distributed throughout North America during the breeding season, wintering in the 
Southern states. 
DIMENSIONS. 
Average measurements of ten specimens.—Length, 5-64; stretch, 6T5; wing, 2-07; tail, 1-67; bill, -57; tarsus, 
•68. Longest specimen, 5-25; greatest extent of wings, 7 , 00; longest wing, 2-25; tail, 1-80; bill, *60; tarsus, ’75. 
Shortest specimen, 4T2; smallest extent of wings, 5-00; shortest wing, 1-75; tail, 1-48; bill, -45; tarsus, -60. 
DESCRIPTION OF NESTS AND EGGS. 
Nests, built in grass or reeds, and formed of coarse grass or of reeds which are bent and woven into the form 
of a hollow globe, with a hole for an entrance at the side. They are lined with fine grasses and the nests of spiders. 
Dimensions; external diameter, 7 inches; internal, 3 inches. 
Eggs, usually six in number, oval in form, pale brown in color, spotted and blotched irregularly with darker 
brown; sometimes the spots are very minute forming a dark washing over the entire surface. On other eggs they 
become confluent and form rings around the larger ends. Dimensions, from -60x-50 to -70x-55. 
HABITS. 
Spruce Creek, in Eastern Florida, rises in the interior near Lake Ashby. It is a remarkable 
stream, for this section, inasmuch as the banks are high and abrupt, rising in many places forty 
feet from the water; these highlands do not form both margins of the river in any one place, 
however, but enclose an expanse of marsh, which varies from a few hundred yards to a mile in 
width, through which the stream winds. This interval is thickly overgrown with a species of 
rush (Jitncus marilimus ), which grows to the height of five feet. The luxuriant growth formed 
a cover for hundreds of Long-billed Marsh Wrens, and is the only place where I ever found 
them in any numbers in Florida. My attention was attracted to them by their notes which are 
merely weak sputtering attempts at song. 
