THE COW BLACKBIRD. 839 



sustenance from fields and meadows, glcanii% seeds of 

 grasses and weeds, and capturing orthopterous and other 

 insects, thej make sad havoc in the fields of late grain and 

 rice ; and the firing of guns during their passage through 

 the Middle and Southern States, not only by farmers' and 

 planters' boys, but by sportsmen and pot-hunters, who 

 shoot them for the table and market, is often almost inces- 

 sant. 



MOLOTHRUS, Swainson. 



Mohthrus, Swainson, F. Bor. Am., II. (1831) 277. (Type Fringilla pecoris, Gm.) 

 Bill short, stout, about two-thirds the length of head; the commissure straight; 

 ciilmen and gonys slightly curved, convex, the former broad, rounded, convex, and 

 running back on the head in a point ; lateral toes nearly equal, reaching the base of 

 the middle one, which is shorter than the tarsus; claws rather small; tail nearly 

 even; wings long, pointed, the first quill longest. 



MOLOTHRUS PECORIS. — Swainson. 



The Cow Blackbird ; Cowbird. 



Fringilla pecoris, Gmelin. Syst. Nat., I. (1788) 910. 

 ETnieriza pecoi-is, Wilson. Am. Om., II. (1810) 145. 



Icterus pecons, Bonaparte. Obs. Wils. (1824), No. 88. Aud. Om. Biog., I. (1831) 

 493; V. (1839)233, 490. 



Icterus (emberizoides) pecoris, Nuttall. Man., I. (1832) 178; 2d ed., 190. 

 FringUla ambigua, Nuttall. Man. I. (1832) 484. (Young.) 



Description. 



Second quill longest; first scarcely shorter; tail nearly even, or very slightly 

 rounded; male with the head, neclc, and anterior half of the breast, light chocolate- 

 brown, rather lighter above; rest of body lustrous-black, with a violet-purple gloss, 

 next to the brown, of steel-blue on the back, and of green elsewhere. Female, light 

 olivaceous-brown all over, lighter on the head and beneath ; bill and feet black. 



The young bird of the year is brown above, brownish-white beneath; the throat 

 immaculate; a maxillary stripe and obscure streaks thickly crowded across the 

 whole breast and sides ; there is a faint indication of a pale superciliary stripe ; 

 the feathers of the upper parts are all margined with paler ; there are also indications 

 of the light bands on the wings: these markings are all obscure, but perfectly appre- 

 ciable, and their existence in adult birds may be considered as embryonic, and show- 

 ing an inferiority in degree to the species with the under parts perfectly plain. 



Length, eight inches; wing, four and forty-two one-hundredths inches; tail, three 

 and forty one-hundredths inches. 



SaJ. — United States from the Atlantic to California: not found immediately on 

 the coast of the Pacific. 



