OTe, NOTES ON THE 
partially spread, and drooping, displaying to the best possible 
advantage the harlequin dress of boldly contrasted colors, he 
pours out his devotions in song while waltzing around her on 
the ground or mounting into the air above and in front of her, 
he hovers over her, fairly bursting with the notes of his 
ardent professions; until she flies from his demonstrations, 
when he accepts the hint and follows her through fences and 
bushes furiously until she yields to his persistence and from 
thence through all the period of nestbuilding, incubation, and 
rearing the brood they remain most truly united. 
Karly in June the nest is built in a tussock or depression in 
the ground, which is further excavated by the birds, and con- 
sists of dried grasses, rather slightly disposed. It is usually 
in a meadow near a rivulet of clear running water, and con- 
tains about five eggs of a brownish-clay color, with spots and 
blotches of different shades of umber. 
As soon as incubation is completed, the hitherto jubilant 
male drops his singing and his gaudy dress, and assuming a 
plain sparrow-like mantle, only lingers long enough to see that 
the brood can care for themselves, when, with his faithful 
companion, he spends the remaining summer in the quietest 
ramblings conceivable. About the first of September, often as 
early as the 25th of August, old and young gather into flocks 
and begin to slowly work their way southward, feeding by day 
and making their flights in the early dawn. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
General color in spring black; nape brownish-cream; « patch 
on the side of the breast, scapulars and rump white, shading 
into light ash on the upper tail coverts and the back below the 
interscapular region; the outer primaries sharply margined 
with yellowish-white, the tertials less abruptly; the tail 
feathers margined at the tips with pale brownish ash. 
Length, 7.70; wing, 3.83; tail, 8.15. 
Habitat, eastern North America to the Great Plains. 
MOLOTHRUS ATER (Bopparrr). (495.) 
COWBIRD. 
The Cowbirds are as fully represented throughout the State 
as in almost any other with which I am equally well acquinted. 
They reach us not far from the first of April, and retire again | 
about the 25th of October. In occasional springs I have seen 
them as early as the 25th of March, and in others not before 
the middle of April. And I have seen some of them remaining 
