i6 



EI?* iflarbUr 



bnrned-over. From this fact one learns how generic, with the Brewer Black- 

 bird, is its uncaringness for covert. As a conspicuous example of this un- 

 carino-ness let me say ; that I once invaded, asearch for nests of this bird, a 

 little burned tract lying between St. Vincent, Minnesota, and Emerson, Man- 

 itoba. Several nests were found, in this little burned space, at foot of wil- 

 lows and burr-oaks: betrayed, in each case, by the fussy anxiety of both 

 parent birds. But in crossing a bit of closely-mown meadow a Brewer Black- 

 bird rose from before my very feet. A barely efficacious rim of rootlets held 

 the six ep-gs contained in the nest away from the wet earth beneath them. 

 In this colony of about ten pairs of birds I learned one odd habit the Brewer 



NEST OF BREWER'S BLACKBIRD IN BURR OAK 



Blackbird has of dragging nesting stuff in to the nest-matrix ; instead of 

 carrving it. The accompanying photograph, which clearly shows this habit, 

 was found near Hallock, thirty miles from the St. Vincent site; in precisely 

 the same sort of environ. This photograph reveals the presence, in the nest, 

 of an egg of the Cow-Bird. This is characteristic. Comparatively few nests 

 escape that arrant parasite ; which goes to prove the Brewer Blackbird as 

 great a coward as the Cow-Bird is a rogue. (It is well known that few nests 

 of large birds are ever invaded by the Cow-Bird). 



The burr-oak hill-side location, of which a photograph is shown, repre- 

 sents a type of location as to which I have no information save my own. 

 The discovery was a real triumph ; great as was the labor intervening be- 



