274 NESTS AND EGGS OF 



of large marshes, attached to the tall flags and grasses. They are gen- 

 erally large, light, but thick-brimmed, made of interwoven grasses and 

 sedges impacted together. 



The eggs are stated to range from two to six in number, but the 

 usual number is four. In the hundreds of sets that have come into 

 my hands only three contained five eggs each. Their ground-color is 

 dull grayish-white, in some grayish-green, profusely covered with 

 small blotches and specks of drab, purplish-brown and umber. Their 

 average size is 1.12X.75. 



498. Agelaius phoeniceus (Linn.) [261.] 



Red-Tv^inged Blackbird. 



Hab. Temperate North America in general, north to Great Slave Lake, south to Costa Rica. 



The Red-winged Starling or Swamp Blackbird is found from the 

 Atlantic to the Pacific, and as far north as the 57th parallel, breeding 

 more or less abundantly wherever found, from Florida and Texas to 

 the Saskatchewan country. In its native marshes during the breeding 

 season, which is in May and June, a loud chorus of discord and har- 

 mony may be heard from the Red-wings, and above all the strange, 

 reverberating kong-qner-ree^ kong-quer-ree. The nest is usually built 

 in reeds or bushes near the ground, often in a tussock of grass, some- 

 times on the ground, and once in a while at a considerable elevation 

 in a tree. The materials are usually strips of rushes or sedges, lined 

 with finer grasses and sometimes with a few horse hairs. It is rather 

 bulky, and not at all artistic. This bird nests in communities, and one 

 is quite as likely to find several nests near each other as a single one, 

 in a piece of swamp. Nests and eggs found in Texas are smaller than 

 the average of those found in the more northern States. 



The eggs are light blue, marbled, lined, blotched and clouded 

 with markings of light and dark purple and black, almost entirely 

 about the larger end, but vary considerably in this respect ; they are 

 usually four, rarely five in number, and average i.oox .75. 



499. Agelaius gubernator (Wagl.) [261a.] 



Bicolored Blackbird. 



Hab. Valleys of California and Western Oregon, and south into Western Mexico. 



The Red-and-black-shouldered Blackbird occurs along the Pacific 

 coast from British Columbia south throughout California. The female 

 is not distinguishable from the female Red-wing, and the nesting hab- 

 its are exactly the same, placing the nests in watercress or rushes, 

 along running streams, ditches and swamps. 



The eggs are light blue or bluish-white, marked around the larger 

 end with waving lines of dark brown, lighter in shade than the mark- 



