ICTERID.E — TIIK OKIOLES — XANTIIOCEPIIALUS. 



2G9 



Colorado Valley and San iJiego, tlioiigh I doubt if any pass the summer so 

 far south. They build, liowever, at Santa Barbara and northward, avoiding 

 the immediate coast, but swarming about Klamath Lake. (Newberry.) 

 Though abundant east of the Eocky IVIountaiiis uji to lat. 58°, I ^e^■er saw 

 them near the Columbia. 



They associate in flocks with the other Ijlackbirds, but also keep in sej)- 

 arate bands, and fly with such regularity that their yellow heads often 

 show all at once as they wheel in their aerial evolutions. Sometimes also 

 the sexes fly in separate flocks before tlie pairing season. They are %'ery 

 gregarious even in spring and simimer, and seem to build in company. The 

 only song the male attempts consists of a few hoarse chuckling notes and 

 comical squeakings, uttered as if it was a great effort to make any noise at 

 all. Though some kept about the marsh at Santa Barbara, in which were 

 the nests of the red-wings, I could not find theirs. According to Heermann, 

 the nest is composed of dry reeds and grasses, attaclied to the upright 

 stalks of the reeds, and firmly fixed by jjieces twisted around them. The 

 eggs, four in number, were pale ashy-green, thickly covered and minutely 

 dotted with points and spots of light lamber brown. Xuttall describes the 

 eggs as nearly similar, Ijluish-white, covered all over with minute specks of 

 brownisli-purple, largest and most numerous at the greater end. He says, 

 however, that the nest found liy Townsend near the Platte Biver, on the 

 edge of a grassy marsh, was on the ground, under a tussock formed of fine 

 grasses and canopied over like that of the meadow-lark {Sturiulla). As 

 there are no reeds there, the bird may vary its mode of building to suit 

 circum .stances. 





5. mtis.na. 



