58 THE NORTHWESTERN RED-WING. 
hue, contrasting with a black mantle which fairly shone. He appeared 
an amiable old fellow, and as he lighted ponderously on an uplifted branch 
of my tree, he remarked, ‘“Jlhoo-kuswee-ung,’ so hospitably that I felt 
impelled to murmur, “Thanks,” and assured him of my unhostile intent. 
“Conqueree?” he questioned, richly. ‘‘Er—well, yes, if you are the con- 
queror.” 
But the general had other interests to watch. An upstart male of 
the second year with shoulder-straps of a sickly orange hue, was descried 
a rod away climbing hand-over-hand up a cat-tail stem. Keyring, keyring, 
the despot warned him; and because the presumptuous youth did not heed 
him quickly enough, he launched his splendor over the spot, whereat the 
youth sank in dire confusion. And next, our hero caught sight of a 
female fair to look upon peeping at him furtively from behind her lattice 
of reeds. ‘To see was to act, he flung his heart at the maiden upon the 
instant, and followed headlong after, thru I know not what reedy mazes. 
Oh, heart ever young, and pursuit never wearying! 
Northwestern Red-wings find rather restricted range thruout western 
Washington, but they appear wherever there are fresh-water marshes or 
reed-bordered lakes. In default of cat-tails they will accept the shelter of 
dwarf willows, or coarse dense grass of any sort. 
Nesting is undertaken at Tacoma at least by the third week in April, 
and we have found eggs as early as the sixth of that month. The nest of 
the accompanying illustration (photogravure) is composed solely of the 
coiled stems of the dried bulrushes, amongst which it is placed, with a 
lining of clean dried grass-stems. 
Few eggs exceed in beauty those of the Red-winged Blackbird. The 
background is a pale bluish green of great delicacy, and upon this occur 
sharply-defined spots, blotches, marblings, traceries, and “‘pen-work”’ of dark 
sepia, purplish black, drab, and heliotrope purple. Or a spot of color appears 
to be deeply imbedded in the fine, strong texture of the shell, and carries 
about it an aura of diminishing color. Occasionally, the whole egg is 
suffused with pale brownish, or, more rarely, it is entirely unmarked. 
Incubation lasts fourteen days and the young are ready to leave the 
nest in a little over two weeks more. They are frizzly, helpless, complain- 
ing little creatures, but if they cannot fly well they can clamber, and they 
cling with the grip of terrified monkeys. 
Our Northwestern Red-wings are normally migratory, but they also 
winter with us irregularly; and this habit appears to be gaining ground as 
the guarantee of food becomes more certain. Numbers of them subsist in 
both Seattle and Tacoma in the vicinity of grain elevators, where they will 
have comfortable sustenance until such time as the augmented English Spar- 
rows decree death to all native birds. 
