316 THE GENUS ICTERIA 



the differences of musical critics are as hard to reconcile in some 

 cases as in certain others with which we are all familiar ; but 

 I have no doubt the bird sings very well indeed. 



Many nests of this bird have come to the notice of natural- 

 ists. They are usually built on the ground in close covert, 

 though said to be sometimes placed in a bush a foot or so high 

 in one instance, given by Nuttall, "near the ground, in the dead 

 mossy limbs of a fallen oak, and further partly hidden by a long 

 tuft of Usnea". The shape differs much according to the situ- 

 ation, the ground-built specimens being quite broad and flattish, 

 not more than half as high as wide, with a shallow cavity, and 

 quite uniformly thick walls. Those placed in bushes were more 

 cup-like. Some have been described as consisting almost en- 

 tirely of mosses; others, among them one I examined, are built of 

 various soft, fibrous materials, especially bark-strips and frayed- 

 out plant-stems, with fine grasses, mostly circularly arranged, and 

 lined with slender rootlets. The eggs, four or five in number, 

 are white, doubtless with a flesh-tint when fresh, and are vari- 

 ously blotched, in a wholly irregular manner, with very dark 

 brown, almost blaekish ; and further spotted and smirched with 

 several shades of lighter, more reddish-brown, together with the 

 usual shell-markings of undefinable neutral tint. Some of the 

 blotches, especially the darker ones, are remarkably large ; and 

 the whole aspect of the egg is different from that usually seen 

 in this family, where fine speckling with reddish is the rule. 

 The eggs I describe were collected by Mr. Eidgway in Nevada, 

 and I presume there is no question of their identification. The 

 extremes measure 0.70x0.50 and 0.65x0.52. As the bird ranges 

 so widely in the breeding season, the period of laying must vary; 

 but June appears to be the usual time. We are not informed 

 whether more than one brood may be reared by the same pair 

 during a summer. Fully fledged birds have been seen by the 

 21st of July. 



Genus ICTERIA Vieillot 



Icterla, Vimll. OAS. i. 1807, pp. iii. and 85. (Type Mu*ciw,pa viridis Gm.) 

 Jctcriu, Cab. MH. i. 1850, 63, and some other German writers. 

 Peteria, Hoy, Proc. Phila. Acad. 1853, 309. (Typographical error.) 



CHARS. Bill stout, high at the base (higher than broad at 

 nostrils), thence compressed; unnotched, unbristled, with much 

 curved culmen and commissure. Frontal feathers reaching the 

 nostrils, which are subcircular and scaled. Wings much 

 rounded, shorter or not longer than the graduated tail. Tarsus 



