fine male which was perched in a tree about a mile from the 
beach. This bird is the one figured on plate XXV of the 
second edition of my Birds of Eastern North America, 1896. 
The type, a male in autumnal plumage, is now in the New 
England collection of the Boston Society of Natural History. 
From 1871 on, the Ipswich Sparrow occurred in ever 
increasing numbers, reaching its maximum abundance in the 
eighties. After this it appears to have become less numerous. 
My earliest record for the occurrence of the Ipswich 
Sparrow in fall is October 12, 1912, when I saw two on Plum 
Island. The latest in spring is May 11, 1918, when I found 
a male in full spring dress, also on Plum Island. Since all 
notes of the observations of this species in Ipswich and else¬ 
where that have been made by myself and members of my 
classes in Ipswich and elsewhere for the last twelve years, 
have been published in Records of Walks and Talks with 
Nature, I will not repeat them here. One record, however, 
which does not appear in that publication, I will give: — 
On November 19, 1900, I shot a female Ipswich Sparrow 
that came in from sea in company with a Snow Bunting and 
alighted on the beach at New River Inlet, North Carolina. 
This specimen is in the collection of Mr. John E. Thayer. 
Another rather remarkable observation is, where two were 
noted on Virginia Beach, Virginia, April 4, 1909, by myself 
and members of my class. 
After a rather careful study of this interesting sparrow for 
over fifty years, it is quite natural that I should have come to 
some conclusions regarding it. These conclusions are briefly 
stated below: 
It .appears to me that all the known facts regarding the 
Ipswich Sparrow indicate that it is comparatively a recently 
evolved species. At a time in the not distant past some 
hardy Savanna Sparrows found their way to Sable Island, 
which we now know, through the efforts of Dr. Jonathan 
Dwight and others, is in all probability the sole breeding 
ground of the Ipswich Sparrow. These hardy Savannas, 
finding a suitable home on this island, not only for summer, 
but also for winter, remained there. Here on this wind 
swept tract of sand, the law of the survival of the fittest pro- 
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