No. 6. 
YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD. 
A. O. U. No. 497. Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus ([onap. ). 
Description.—Adult male: Head, neck all around, and breast orange yel- 
low; lores and teathers skirting eyes and bill, black; a double white patch on 
fo Ided wing formed by greater and lesser coverts, but interrupted by black of 
bastard wing; usually a “little yellow about vent and on tibie; the remaining 
plumage black, dull or subdued, and turning brown on wing-tips and tail. Female : 
Dark brown; line over eye, throat, and upper breast dull yellow. Length 10.00- 
11.00 (254.-279.4) ; Wing 5.30-5.60 (134.6-142.2) ; tail 4.00-4.50 (101.6-114.3) 
bill .go (22.); tarsus 1.25 (31.8). Female smaller, length 8.00-9.50 (203.2- 
241.3). 
Recognition Marks.—Robin size; yellow head and breast. 
“Nest, a light but large, thick-brimmed fabric of dried reeds and grasses slung 
to growing ones, 5-6 inches in diameter and about as deep. Eggs, 3-6, 1.00-1.15 
(25.4-29.2) long by 0.75 (19.1) broad; grayish-green, spotted as in Scolecophagus 
with reddish-brown, not scrawled as in Agelaius” (CORES). 
General Range.—Western North America from Wisconsin, Illinois and 
Texas to the Pacific Coast, and from British Columbia and the Saskatchewan 
River southward to the Valley of Mexico. Accidental in Middle and Atlantic 
States. 
Range in Ohio.—Of rare and casual occurrence only. 
J 
THIS Blackbird is essentially a bird of the Prairies, and it is eminently fit- 
ted for obtaining its living on the ground, since its legs and feet are strongly de- 
veloped as if by and for scratching. Large numbers spend the winter sociably 
in the tule swamps of Texas and California, breaking up into smaller companies 
after the migration has been accomplished, and distributing themselves among 
the inland marshes of the Great Plains, and locally throughout the West, where 
they breed much after the fashion of Redwings. The species is of a rather 
roving disposition, one specimen having been taken in Greenland in 1820. 
Small bunches have several times been recognized on the wing by competent 
observers here in Ohio, and Wheaton cites the instance of a pair being seen in 
a low meadow near Groveport, in Franklin County, where it was thought to 
have bred, in the summer of 1873. 
