140 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 233 



found their way into print, but they have not. The report serves to 

 caution against generahzations too easily derived from negative or 

 insufficient data as to the status of this species as a cowbird host. 

 Similarly, in Decatur, Arkansas, Plank (1919, p. 18) wrote that the 

 blue grosbeak "is one of the worst preyed-on birds. In a nest near a 

 pasture a few years ago I found thi'ee Cowbird's eggs in various stages 

 of incubation and one Grosbeak's egg nearly ready to hatch. Another 

 nest contained two Cowbird's eggs and two Grosbeak's. One rarely 

 finds a nest of this species that has not been visited by a Cowbird." 

 In Woods County, Oklahoma, Mr. Guy Love collected no fewer than 

 five parasitized sets of eggs, which suggests a high incidence of cow- 

 bird parasitism there. All in all, I have noted about 30 cases of 

 parasitism on the blue grosbeak. 



The cases are distributed among the following states: Arkansas, 

 California, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oldahoma, 

 Texas, and Virginia. The total number of records involves thi*ee 

 races of the grosbeak: salicaria in southern California; interfusa 

 in Texas, Oldahoma, and New Mexico; and caerulea in the other 

 areas that were listed. Two cowbhd races are involved in these 

 records: ohscurus with salicaria and interfusa; ater with caerulea 

 and interfusa. 



Previously unpublished and — as far as I know — the only record 

 from New Mexico is a set of eggs with 1 of the cowbird, taken in 

 Eddy County on June 18, 1923, by E. E. Pilquist and now in the 

 Cruttenden collection at Qumcy, Illinois. 



Evidence of the ability of this grosbeak to rear young of the para- 

 site is afforded by the record of a young cowbird and a young grosbeak 

 reared together at Norman, Oklahoma (Nice, 1931, pp. 174-175). 



Indigo Bunting 



Passerina cyanea (Linnaeus) 



The indigo bunting is a very frequent host of the brown-headed 

 cowbkd. About 200 records have been noted, distributed in Ontario 

 and Quebec, in Canada, and the following of the United States: 

 Alabama, Ai-kansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, 

 Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, 

 Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, 

 Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia, 

 and Wisconsin. These records aU involve the eastern race of the 

 cowbird, M.a. ater, with the exception of one record from Soledad 

 Canyon, California, where Bleitz (1958) found that the indigo bunting 

 was victimized by the southwestern race of the parasite, M.a. ohscurus. 



In some areas, a fairly high percentage of the nests contain eggs of 

 the cowbu'd. In Ohio, Hicks (1934) found 43 nests, of which 17, 



