The Yellow-Headed Blackbird 



(Xanfhoccphalus xanthocephalus) 



By W. Leon Dawson 



Description. — Adult male: Head, neck all around, and breast orange yel- 

 low ; lores and feathers skirting eyes and bill, black ; a double white patch on 

 folded wing formed by greater and lesser coverts, but interrupted by black of 

 bastard wing ; usually a little yellow about vent and on tibiae ; the remaining 

 plumage black, dull or subdued, and turning brown on wing-tips and tail. Female: 

 Dark brown; line over eye, throat, and upper breast dull yellow. Length 10.00- 

 11.00 (254.-279.4); wing 5.30-5.60 (134.6-142.2); tail 4.00-4.50 (101.6-114.3); 

 bill .90 (22.); tarsus 1.25 (31.8). Female smaller, length 8.00-9.50 (203.2- 

 241.3). 



Recognition Marks- — Robin size ; yellow head and breast. 



''Nest, a light but large, thick-brimmed fabric of dried reeds and grasses slung 

 to growing ones, 5-6 inches in diameter and about as deep. Eggs, 3-6, 1.00-1.15 

 (25.4-29.2) long by 0.75 (19.1) broad; grayish-green, spotted as in Scolecophagus, 

 with reddish-brown, not scrawled as in Agclahis" (Coues). 



General Range. — Western North America from Wisconsin, Illinois and 

 Texas to the Pacific Coast, and from British Columbia and the Saskatchewan 

 River southward to the Valley of Mexico. Accidental in Middle and Atlantic 

 States. 



This Blackbird is essentially a bird of the Prairies, and it is eminently fitted 

 for obtaining its living on the ground, since its legs and feet are strongly devel- 

 oped as if by and for scratching. Large numbers spend the winter sociably in 

 the tule swamps of Texas* and California, breaking up into smaller companies 

 after the migration has been accomplished, and distributing themselves among 

 the inland marshes of the Great Plains, and locally throughout the West, where 

 they breed much after the fashion of Redwings. The species is of a rather roving 

 disposition, one specimen having been taken in Greenland in 1820. Small bunches 

 have several times been recognized on the wing by competent observers here in 

 Ohio, and Wheaton cites the. instance of a pair being seen in a low meadow near 

 Groveport, in Franklin County, where it was thought to have bred, in the summer 

 of 1873. 



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