Widmann — A Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri. 151 



Records of its breeding are few and we must for the present 

 consider the species a rare summer resident in northern Missouri 

 only. Mr. Currier knows of its nesting in Clark Co. in 1897, and 

 Mr. Parker says it breeds in Montgomery Co. Professor I. W. 

 Kilpatrick reported the Bobolink as a rare summer resident in 

 1885 at Fayette, Howard Co. In Mr. Lynds Jones' list of 

 birds seen June 29, 1900, on his way through northern Missouri 

 from La Plata, Macon Co., to Kansas City, i. e., south of 40° 

 lat., the Bobolink has found a place. Trippe in his list of 

 birds of Decatur Co., Iowa, just across the state Une, says of 

 it: '^ Breeds locally." 



*495. MoLOTHRUS ATER (Bodd.). Cowbird. 



Emheriza pecoris. Icterus pecoris. MolothriLS pecoris. Fringilla amhigua 

 (juv.) 



Geog. Dist. — North America, except portions of Pacific coast; 

 north to about lat. 49° in the East, and to 55° in the interior; 

 west to British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and 

 southeastern California. Breeds from Georgia, Louisiana and 

 Texas (San Antonio and Houston) northward and winters from 

 the Southern States southward to Yucatan. 



In Missouri a common summer resident on all cultivated land 

 throughout the state, even in the valleys of the Ozarks, but 

 avoiding deep woods and therefore rather rare in some of the 

 southern counties and in the southeast. A few winter in the 

 state, not only from St. Louis southward, but in mild winters 

 also in the northern part, as reported by Mrs. Musick from 

 Mt. Carmel, Audrain Co., December 25-28, 1884, and January 21 

 and 24, 1888, and by Mr.M. P. Lientz from Linwood, January 

 30, 1889 and January 8, 1890. The very first Cowbirds come in 

 the company of Redwings about the first of March, but are easily 

 overlooked as they do not appear in their old haunts, staying 

 with the host of Redwings in the marshes. As is the case with 

 all other March arrivals, the dates of first Cowbirds vary greatly 

 with the weather from the second week of March to the first week 

 of April. The bulk of the species generally does not come before 

 the first or second week of April and in the more northern part 

 before the second or third week. It is usually not far from April 

 1 when the first male Cowbird announces from a treetop that he 

 is back again at his old stand and ready for mischief, but it is 

 a week or more before he gets a chance to court. After the 



