RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. 101 



courageous brothers who have spent the winter here. 

 The males, gorgeous in their epaulets of scarlet and 

 gold, precede by some days their less showy but 

 equally well-dressed wives. Quonk-cr-rce, Quonk-er- 

 rec, they cry, and the musical call is as much a part 

 of spring on the marshes as is the frog chorus with 

 which it mingles. 



Most of the Red-wings soon pass on north, but 

 some remain to breed in the marshes of the Potomac 

 and Anacostia Rivers, and in other swampy places in 

 the neighborhood. Their nest is built low in the reeds 

 or bushes, and is composed of coarse marsh grasses 

 and weed stalks, well lined with finer grass and root- 

 lets. The eggs, 3 to 5, vary in color, but are most 

 commonly pale blue, scrawled and blotched in heavy 

 dark lines, as if done with a broad stub pen. 



These Blackbirds are most abundant in autumn, 

 when they flock over the Potomac flats in company 

 with the Reed-birds (Bobolinks). They begin to 

 gather as early as the first week in August and grow 

 more numerous with frequent arrivals from the north 

 until October, when most of them depart to spend the 

 winter gleaning in southern rice fields. 



