344 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



A nest taken from the cattails at Cut Off Lake, near Omaha, 

 Nebraska, June 18, 1893, was composed of grass and sedges 

 wound and woven to the cattails in which it was situated about 

 two feet above the water which was stated to be twenty-eight 

 inches deep there. The eggs measure 1.10 x 0.70, 1.07 x 0.69, 

 1.04x0.68, 1.05x0.70, 0.95x0.65. The ground color of 

 the eggs is grayish or greenish white, and they are usually 

 rather evenly spotted and thickly specked over the entire sur- 

 face with brown, drab, pearl gray and rufous. 



Major Bendire gives the incubation period as fourteen days 

 and states that the young leave the nest in about sixteen days. 

 Three to six, usually five eggs are laid. The food of the 

 species consists of insects, and various weed, grass and grain 

 seed according to other observers, but it would seem on the 

 whole to be a beneficial species. 



Genus AGELAIUS Vieillot. 



498. A g-elaius phoeniceus (hinn.^. Red- winged Blackbird; 

 Swamp Blackbird; Marsh Blackbird. 



Plumage of adult male : shoulders (lesser wing coverts) bright scarlet, 

 edged with ochraceous buff to buffy white ; otherwise black, and in winter 

 tipped slightly with rusty. Plumage of young male : shoulder orange red 

 mixed with black ; feathers above margined with buffy and rusty ; below 

 whitish tipped, otherwise like adult male. Plumage of female : blackish, 

 streaked with buffy and rusty above ; i-ump fuscous with ashy edging ; wings 

 fuscous, the lesser coverts sometimes reddish tinged ; throat slightly yellow 

 tinged ; breast and belly streaked black and white. Wing 4.80 ; culmen 0.82 ; 

 tarsus 1.18. 



Geog. Dist. — Eastern North America from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico 

 to New Brunswick, Great Slave Lake and British Columbia ; wintering from 

 Virginia to Central America. 



County Records. — Androscoggin; abundant summer resident, (Johnson). 

 Aroostook; local on the lakes and about the waterways, (Knight). Cumber- 

 land; common summer resident, (Mead). Franklin ; common summer resi- 

 dent, (Swain). Hancock; common but very local in summer, (Knight). 

 Kennebec; common summer resident, (Gardiner Branch). Knox; summer, 

 (Rackliff). Lincoln; (Norton). Oxford; breeds commonly, (Nash). Penob- 

 scot; common locally as summer resident, (Knight). Piscataquis; common. 



