60 THE YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD. 
overcomes you, and you retire, not without a chastened sense of privilege that 
you have lived to hear the Yellow-head pop the question,—‘‘and also you 
lived after.” 
The expiring Romeo ery is quite the finest of the Xanthocephaline reper- 
tory, but there are others not devoid of interest. Ok-eh-alt-oh-oo is a musical 
series of startling brilliancy, comparable in a degree to the yodelling of a street 
urchin,—a succession of sounds of varying 
pitches, produced as tho by altering the oral 
capacity. It may be noted thus: 
The last note is especially mellow etter 
and pleasing, recalling to some 
ears the liquid gurgle of the Bobolink, to 
which, of course, our bird is distinctly related. 
Alternating with the last named, and more 
frequently heard from the depths of the 
nesting swamp is gur, gurrl; or, as oftenest, 
yewi(nk), yewi(nk), gur-gurrl. In this 
phrase the gurrl is drawn out with comical 
effect, as tho the gallant were down on his 
knees before some unyielding maiden. 
The Yellow-head’s ordinary note of dis- 
trust, equivalent to the dink note of the Red- 
Seine mH wing, is kluck or koluck’. In flight this 
Photo by the Author becomes almost invariably oo'kluk, oo'kluk. 
MALE YELLOW HEAD. : tO EAS 
At rest, again, this is sometimes prolonged 
into a thrilling passage of resonant “‘l’’ notes, probably remonstratory in 
character. The alarm cry is built upon the same basis, and is uttered with 
exceeding vehemence, klookoloy, klookoloy, klook ocooo. 
Finally, if one may presume to speak finally of so versatile a genius, 
they have a harsh, rasping note very similar in quality to the scolding note 
of the Steller Jay, only lighter in weight and a little higher in pitch. This 
is the note of fierce altercation, or the distress cry in imminent danger. 
The last time I heard it was in the rank herbage bordering upon a shallow 
lake in Douglas County. I rushed in to find a big blow-snake coiling just 
below a nestful of young birds, while the agonized parents and sympathetic 
neighbors hovered over the spot crying piteously. To stamp upon the reptile 
was but the work of a moment; and when I dropped the limp ophidian upon 
the bare ground, all the blackbird population gathered about the carcass, 
shuddering but exultant, and—perhaps it was only fancy—grateful too. 
For all the Yellow-head is so decided in utterance, in disposition he 
is somewhat phlegmatic, the male bird especially lacking the vivacity which 
characterizes the agile Brewer Blackbird. Except when hungry, or im- 
