272 NOTES ON THE 



partially spread, and drooping, displaying to the best possible 

 advantage the harlequin dress of boldly contrasted colors, he 

 pours out his devotions in song while waltzing around her on 

 the ground or mounting into the air above and in front of her, 

 he hovers over her, fairly bursting with the notes of his 

 ardent professions, until she flies from his demonstrations, 

 when he accepts the hint and follows her through fences and 

 bushes furiously until she yields to his persistence and from 

 thence through all the period of nestbuilding, incubation, and 

 rearing the brood they remain most truly united. 



Early in June the nest is built in a tussock or depression in 

 the ground, which is further excavated by the birds, and con- 

 sists of dried grasses, rather slightly disposed. It is usually 

 in a meadow near a rivulet of clear running water, and con- 

 tains about five eggs of a brownish-clay color, with spots and 

 blotches of different shades of umber. 



As soon as incubation is completed, the hitherto jubilant 

 male drops his singing and his gaudy dress, and assuming a 

 plain sparrow-like mantle, only lingers long enough to see that 

 the brood can care for themselves, when, with his faithful 

 companion, he spends the remaining summer in the quietest 

 ramblings conceivable. About the first of September, often as 

 early as the 25th of August, old and young gather into flocks 

 and begin to slowly work their way southward, feeding by day 

 and making their flights in the early dawn. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



General color in spring black; nape brownish cream; a patch 

 on the side of the breast, scapulars and rump white, shading 

 into light ash on the upper tail coverts and the back below the 

 interscapular region; the outer primaries sharply margined 

 with yellowish- white, the tertials less abruptly; the tail 

 feathers margined at the tips with pale brownish ash. 



Length, 7.70; wing, 3.83; tail, 8.15. 



Habitat, eastern North America to the Great Plains. 



MOLOTHRUS ATER (Boddaert). (495.) 



COWBIRD. 



The Cowbirds are as fully represented throughout the State 

 as in almost any other with which I am equally well acquinted. 

 They reach us not far from the first of April, and retire again 

 about the 25th of October. In occasional springs I have seen 

 them as early as the 25th of March, and in others not before 

 the middle of April. And I have seen some of them remaining 



