NORTH AMERICAN BHWS. 353 



less heavily spotted and dashed with several shades of brown. The markings are 

 apt to be heavier at the smaller end. By this peculiarity they can usually be dis- 

 tinguished from those of Q. major. The average size of forty-five eggs is 1.26x.85; 

 largest 1.44x.91; smallest 1.16x.82. 



513. BOAT-TAILED GRACKLE. Quiscalus major Vieill. Geog. Dist South 



Atlantic and Gulf States, north 'to Virginia, west to Texas. 



Along the coast of the States that border on the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, 

 from the Carolinas to the Rio Grande, the Boat-tailed Crow Blackbird is an abundant 

 species. It is known as the Jackdaw. Breeds in colonies in reeds and rushes in the 

 midst of swamps, or anywhere in trees, often a considerable distance from water, 

 and the nests are also placed in bushes or upon trees at heights varying from twenty 

 to forty feet. It is large and clumsy, made of coarse materials: sticks, dry grasses, 

 weeds, strips of bark, lined with finer stems, fibrous roots and grasses. The nesting 

 time is in April, May, and in June, according to locality. Three or four eggs are 

 laid, of a brownish-drab; some tinged with olive, others with green; they are marked 

 with irregular blotches of brown and black. Ten eggs measure: 1.20x.90; 1.21x.86, 

 1.23x.87, 1.27X.89, 1.26x.89, 1.27x.81, 1.24x.84, 1.30X.91, 1.29x.84, 1.28x.90. The average 

 size is 1.24x.81 inches. 



514. EVENING GROSBEAK. Coccothraustes vespertinus (Coop.) Geog. Dist. 

 Western British Provinces, east to Lake Superior, and casually to Michigan, Ohio, 

 Ontario, New York, and New England. 



This handsome bird is not uncommon in various portions of western North 

 America, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. It is a common resident of the 

 forests of the States of Washington and Oregon. A specimen of this bird, a male, 

 was killed by Mr. George Osbun in front of the Academy Hall of the Dennison Uni- 

 versity, Granville, Ohio, December 10, 1889. It was prepared by Prof. W. G. Tight, 

 and is now in the museum collection of that institution. In Oregon Dr. Merrill ob- 

 served the birds carrying building material to a huge fir tree, but was unable to locate 

 the nest, and the tree was practically inaccessible. Mr. Walter E. Bryant was the 

 first to record an authentic nest and eggs of the Evening Grosbeak. In a paper read 

 before the California Academy of Sciences, June 20, 1887, he describes a nest of this 

 species containing four eggs, found by Mr. E. H. Fiske, in Yolo county, California. 

 The nest was taken May 10, 1886, but the eggs could not be preserved, as incubation 

 was so far advanced. In general shape, color, and markings, they were similar to 

 the eggs of the Black-headed Grosbeak, but in size, Mr. Fiske thinks, they were 

 somewhat larger. The nest was built in a small live oak, at a height of ten feet, and 

 was a more pretentious structure than is usually built by the Black-headed Grosbeak, 

 being composed of small twigs supporting a thin layer of fibrous bark and a lining 

 of horse hair. June 5, 1884, Mr. John Swinburne found a nest of the Evening Gros- 

 beak in a thickly wooded canon, about fifteen miles west of Springerville, Apache 

 county, Arizona. The nest was placed about fifteen feet from the ground, in the 

 top of a small willow bush, on the border of a stream. It was a comparatively slight 

 structure, rather flat, and composed of small sticks and roots, lined with finer por- 

 tions of the latter. This nest contained three fresh eggs of a clear greenish-ground 

 color, blotched with a pale brown. 



514a. WESTERN EVENING^ GROSBEAK. Coccothraustes vespertinus won- 

 tanus Ridgw. Geog. Dist. Western North America, from the Pacific coast eastward 

 to the Rocky Mountains; southward over the tablelands of Mexico to Orizaba. 



24 



