Page:Birdcraft-1897.djvu/232

Rh addition having but the ghost of a voice, that it will not be strange if you overlook it.


 * Length:
 * 5-5.50 inches.


 * Male and Female:
 * Bill extremely sharp for a Sparrow. Above olive-gray with bronze glints, streaked with black on the back, some feathers with light edges; marroon stripes on head; buff stripe through eye; buff or orange cheeks; buff sides to breast, streaked with brown; belly gray; edge of wings yellow; tail feathers sharply pointed; feet grayish blue.


 * Song:
 * Wheezy and choking, which Dr. Dwight describes as " Lic-seè-è-oop."


 * Season:
 * Common summer resident.


 * Breeds:
 * Through its range; two broods a season.


 * Nest:
 * Of coarse grasses, lined with grass and furze, firmly fastened between tussocks.


 * Eggs:
 * Grayish white, thickly speckled with brown.


 * Range:
 * Salt-marshes of the Atlantic coast, from Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia to the Gulf States.

The Sharp-tailed Sparrow must be identified by the brownish orange or buff colouring of the sides of its head and the sharp point which terminates each separate tail feather. I specify this because many people mistake the term sharp-tailed for forked-tailed, and expect the bird to have a tail like the Barn Swallow.

These Sparrows are shy and rather uninteresting, keeping close under cover of sedges and the marsh weeds that edge tide water, and have a feeble flight and a very poor song. They tend to breed in colonies, and choose their haunts here and there without any seeming method, so that they appear to be rare in many eligible places.

Wilson credits them with all the nimbleness of Sand-pipers, running about after dusk and roosting on the ground; and says that they are so fond of the vicinity of water that they are only driven from it by strong northeasterly storms. He also says that their diet is chiefly sea-food, scraps of shell-fish, drift, etc., which gives the flesh a sedgy taste.