BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK 67 



Martir) ; east in California to Owens Valley and the San Bernardino 

 Mountains. 



Winter range. — Winters from southern Baja California (La Paz), 

 southern Sonora (Tesia), and southwestern Chihuahua south to 

 Oaxaca (Mitla). 



Egg dates. — British Columbia: 3 records, June 3 to Jime 5. 



California: 200 records, April 23 to July 10; 102 records, May 5 

 to May 23. 



Washington: 6 records, June 4 to July 4. 



GUIRACA CAERULEA GAERULEA (Linnaeus) 



Eastern Blue Grosbeak 

 plates 6 and 7 



Habits 



For a study of the characters and ranges of the races of this species, 

 the reader is referred to a revision by Dwight and Griscom (1927). 

 According to them, the eastern blue grosbeak is the form that "breeds 

 in the southeastern United States west to central Kansas and western 

 Texas, and north sparingly to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, 

 Kentucky, Illinois and Nebraska * * * " 



Its favorite haunts are similar to those chosen by the indigo bunting: 

 old fields overgrown with brambles, thickets along streams, woods or 

 roadsides, and in hedge rows; it may also be found in orchards or in 

 shrubbery about houses and gardens; but it does not, as a rule, frequent 

 swamps or swampy thickets, or the interior of woodlands. 



Nesting. — The nest of the blue grosbeak is usually built in a bush 

 or small tree, at no great height from the ground, usually 3 to 8 feet 

 up. 



In Virginia, according H. H. Bailey (1913), "Second growth bushes, 

 such as oaks and locusts, are preferred, and seem to be their natural 

 nesting sites, while around my farm they resort to the grape vines 

 trailed on longitudinal wires, and young trees in the orchard, notably 

 pear and cherry." 



C. S. Brimley (1890) records several nests found near Raleigh, 

 N.C. One was 5 feet up in a smaU pine, one 3 feet in an alder, two in 

 sweet gums at 5 and 5% feet, two in mulberries at 4 and 4% feet, and 

 one in a grapevine. 



Henry Nehrling (1896) describes several nests that he found in Lee 

 County, Tex., as follows: 



* * * I discovered the first nest on a road-side only a few steps from a much 



frequented wagon track. It was built in a very thorny blackberry bush, about 



two feet above the ground, and was so well hidden in the dense foUage that it 



could only be seen when the twigs were bent aside. This nest was a very pretty 



646-737— 6S—pt. 1 7 



