FAMILY Icteridz. 
nest or starved to death by reason of the selfishness of 
the loutish foster-brother. 
Red-winged A beautiful slim and smooth black bird 
Blackbird with scarlet epaulets sways unsteadily on 
ke h le stem of a cattail on the margi 
pheeniceus the supple stem of a cattall on the margin 
L. 9.50 inches of the pond, and sends out a strange reed- 
April ist like note which, according to Thoreau’s 
way of thinking, meant Conk-a-ree! This is the Red- 
winged Blackbird, whose personality and coloring are 
as strong as his song is peculiar, The bird is lustrous 
black with the exception of the lesser wing coverts 
(i. e., the shoulders) which are deep scarlet; this color 
is bordered on the lower side by buff or a deep 
cream tint. The female lacks the red color or it is — 
modified to a deep crimson tinge; the black is also 
modified by the rusty margins to the feathers, and the 
throat by a rusty orange tinge; under parts streaked 
with gray or white. The nest is placed in a low bush 
or among reeds, and is woven of coarse grasses, weeds, 
and plant fibres, lined with finer material of the same 
nature. Egg, pale blue, spotted and zigzag-streaked 
with brown. The bird is common throughout the east- 
ern part of the country. 
The Red-winged Blackbird is one of the easiest birds 
to identify by his song, although that has the remark- 
able quality of a mixed tone difficult to describe or to 
place accurately on the musical staff. The song is made 
up of three syllables, the first of which is obscure or dif- 
ficult to catch unless one is not very far away from the 
bird. Various writers interpret the syllables differently. 
Emerson’s opinion is that 
‘‘The Redwing flutes his ‘O ka lee.’” 
Mr. Chapman makes it ‘‘Kong-quer-ree”; William 
Hamilton Gibson, ‘‘Gl-oogl-eee”; and yet another writer, 
‘‘Gug-lug-geee.” On two points all seem to agree, 1. e., 
the three syllables, and a repetition of the vowel e in the 
last syllable. So it is an apparently simple matter to 
express the rhythm by signs, bearing in mind that the 
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