Natural History o/Quiscalus major. 375 



up and pairs scatter everywhere — every low meadow, moist briary 

 tract, and reedy fen having one or more. So it is, also, with 

 the two Pacific coast-species, A. tricolor and A. gubernator ; but 

 these, on account of their limited range and of the comparative 

 scarcity of suitable breeding-places, are more crowded together, 

 as it were, while breeding, and thus probably never wholly for- 

 sake the society of their kind. These three are " marsh " 

 Blackbirds proper : they gather in countless numbers in the 

 fall, and are found wherever reeds and rushes grow, fattening on 

 the nutritious grain ; A. phoeniceus recognizes no bounds but 

 those that are " writ in water.^^ They are mostly granivorous ; 

 insects form a large part of their food only while they await the 

 ripening of a bountiful harvest. 



X. icterocephalus is not far removed from the Agelcei; but it 

 tends toward the group I shall next notice, and in a measure 

 represents the Purple Grackle of the eastern province in the 

 western regions It is the Blackbird of the prairie ; we first 

 meet it on the edge of the treeless country at the eastern limit 

 of the central plateau ; it seems one of the most trustworthy 

 land-marks set up all over the grassy sea. It is always grega- 

 rious — quite as distinctly so during the breeding-season as at 

 other times. I found it breeding in colonies in the marshes of 

 New Mexico in June. It is perhaps less decidedly migratory 

 than most of its allies. 



The Scolecophagi are more independent of water than any of 

 the others. Our two species exactly replace each other in re- 

 spectively the eastern and the middle and western provinces. 

 But there is a notable difference in their latitudinal dispersion. 

 S.ferrugineus is more northern; it is rarely, if ever, seen in the 

 United States in summer, as it passes beyond our limits to 

 breed. I found it breeding in Labrador in Jtdy ; it was not then 

 in Hocks nor even in companies, but scattered over the country 

 in pairs or families, vi'hich seemed to have settled at random 

 among the stunted conifers or other shrubbery that hides the 

 mossy oozy ground. It "makes up " in flocks in August, and 

 in this condition passes southward to winter. It visits ploughed 

 fields, meadows, and pastures, spends much of its time on the 

 ground, and, in the matter of food, seems to merit its technical 



