INTRODUCTION
Taxonomically the Genus Ammospiza has received the attention of ornithologists for more than a century. Nevertheless, the behavior of no species of the genus has been studied extensively. The papers of Montagna and Tomkins are the only works that mention behavior and natural history in any detail. There has been an increasing awareness of the importance of ethological data and of their usefulness in systematics. For these reasons, I made a comparative study of the breeding behavior of the Sharp-tailed Sparrow (Ammospiza caudacuta) and the Seaside Sparrow (Ammospiza maritima) in New Jersey in the spring and summer of 1955.
The Seaside Sparrow is restricted to the Gulf- and Atlantic-coasts of North America, breeding north to Massachusetts. The Sharp-tailed Sparrow breeds south to North Carolina. The overlap of the breeding ranges of the two species is therefore small. Furthermore the forms breeding in the coastal states are restricted to tidal marshes, and the geographically peripheral colonies of each species are small. Irregular nesting is the case for the northernmost colonies of the Seaside Sparrow, on Cape Cod (Griscom, 1944:317), and the same is probably true for the colonies of the Sharp-tailed Sparrow on Pea Island, North Carolina, as indicated by Montagna's failure to locate any breeding birds in July, 1941 (Montagna, 1942b: 256). The center of overlap of the ranges of the two species is in New Jersey where both forms are abundant and can best be studied comparatively.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The adult sparrows were captured and banded, and sometimes the nestlings were banded. The standard funnel trap, baited with seeds, proved useless for capturing birds of the Genus Ammospiza, although migrant Savannah Sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis) readily entered. A Japanese bird net, twenty-five feet long, was used successfully. Eighty-five Sharp-tailed Sparrows and forty Seaside Sparrows were banded at two localities.
All of the adult sparrows were banded with United States Fish and Wildlife Service numbered bands and colored celluloid bands. The colored bands I used were obtained from the Hinton Supply Company of New York City, which manufactures them for cage birds. The firm makes them in seven colors, sold at reasonable prices. With seven colors, the number of combinations, using only one colored band and one aluminum band per bird, is forty-two.
In addition, I dyed many adults and all nestlings. Alcoholic solutions of Victoria Blue B S concentrate and Alizarine Red S concentrate were used. The males were dyed red, the females blue; various areas of the body were colored in order further to individualize the birds. Although the dyes disappeared in less than a month, the markings were helpful on many occasions.