286 NOTES ON THE 
SCOLECOPHAGUS CYANOCEPHALUS (Wacter). (510.) 
BREWER’S BLACKBIRD. 
The migrating movements of this beautiful blackbird do not 
differ from those of the Rusty Blackbird, arriving and depart- 
ing at or about the same times, viz: about April first, and 
about November first. 'They breed abundantly along the Red 
river from Big Stone lake to the Canada line, and eastwardly 
along the shores of the woodland lakes and streams to Mille 
Lacs in Crow Wing county, and less commonly considerably 
further south. 
Mr. Washburn found them at Georgetown, Ada and St. Vin- 
cent, August first, old and young in such numbers as to justify 
the supposition that they breed there. Mr. Lewis reports 
them in large numbers embracing the young still further east 
in the same month. 
Wherever their breeding habits have been observed in either 
Minnesota or Dakota it has been noted that they do not do so 
in large communities. A few pairs will be somewhat associ- 
ated, but often only one in a locality. And they almost as 
often select dry, as swampy sections. The nest is a large 
structure compactly built of twigs and finer materials, like 
dried grasses, rootlets, weed-bark and lined with hair. Some 
nests have considerable mud wrought in, but others have none 
atall. The eggs, flve to six in number, are a dull greenish: 
gray, with several shades of brown in small spots, some of 
which are light and others dark, very irregular in their out- 
lines. 
Doctor Coues in his Birds of The Northwest, page 201, has 
given so true a description of some of the characteristic habits 
of this species that I cannot do better than to quote it. He 
says: ‘‘ Troops of twenty, fifty, a hundred are commonly seen; 
they have no special fondness for watery places, but scour the 
open, dry ground, and scatter among straggling pines and oaks; 
they come fearlessly into the clearings about houses, the 
traveller’s camp, and the stock-yards, gleaning plentiful sub- 
sistence from man’s bounty or wastfulness. Much of their 
time is spent on the ground, rambling in hurried, eager search 
for grain and insects; they generally run with nimble steps, 
hopping being the exception, when they have satisfied their 
hunger, and are moving leisurely with no particular object in 
view. The movements are all easy and graceful, the bird’s 
trim form and glossy color setting it off to great advantage. 
