Mr. Ridgway has recently found this Sparrow to be a very abundant winter resident in Southern Illinois, where it inhabits swampy thickets, and where it remains until May, but is not known to breed there. They always nest on the ground, usually in a depression sheltered by a tuft of grass. The nest is woven of fine grass-stems, but is smaller than the nest of _M. melodia_. The eggs of this species, usually five in number, have an average measurement of .78 by .60 of an inch. Their ground-color is usually a light green, occasionally of a light clay, marked and blotched with reddish and purplish brown spots, varying in size and number, occasionally forming a confluent ring around the larger end. GENUS PEUCÆA, AUDUBON. _Peucæa_, AUD. Synopsis, 1839. (Type, _Fringilla æstivalis_.) SCLATER & SALVIN, 1868, 322 (Synopsis.) [Line drawing: _Peucæa æstivalis_. 10245 ♂] GEN. CHAR. Bill moderate. Upper outline and commissure decidedly curved. Legs and feet with the claws small; the tarsus about equal to the middle toe; the lateral toes equal, their claws falling considerably short of the middle one; the hind toe reaching about to the middle of the latter. The outstretched feet reach rather beyond the middle of the tail. The wing is very short, reaching only to the base of the tail; the longest tertials do not exceed the secondaries, while both are not much short of the primaries; the outer three or four quills are graduated. The tail is considerably longer than the wings; it is much graduated laterally; the feathers, though long, are peculiarly narrow, linear, and elliptically rounded at the ends. Color beneath plain whitish or brownish, with a more or less distinct dusky line each side of the chin. Above with broad obsolete brown streaks or blotches. Crown uniform, or the feathers edged with lighter. Species and Varieties. COMMON CHARACTERS. A light superciliary stripe, with a brownish one below it from the eye along upper edge of ear-coverts (not one along lower edge of ear-coverts, as in _Melospiza_). A narrow blackish “bridle” along side of throat (sometimes indistinct). Crown without a distinct median stripe, and lower parts without markings. Ground-color above ashy, sometimes of a brownish cast; dorsal region and nape with brown blotches, with or without dark centres. Crown blackish-brown streaked with ashy or plain rufous. Beneath plain brownish-white, lightest on the abdomen, darker across jugulum and along sides. A. Crown plain rufous; interscapulars without distinct black centres, and tertials without whitish border. Blackish “bridle” conspicuous. Bend of wing edged with white. 1. P. ruficeps.