io6 AMERICAN OENITIIOLOGY. 



BI^COLORED BLACKBIRD, 



A. O U. No. 499- (Agelaias gubernator.) 



RANGE. 



Pacific coast region from western Washington to Lower Calif. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Like the common Red-wing, except that the ends of all the middle 

 coverts are black and the tips of the lesser coverts only very slightly, 

 if at all, tinged with buffy. The scarlet on the shoulder is of the same 

 shade as that on A. phoejiichis. 



TRI^COLORED BLACKBIRD. 



A. O. U. No. 500 (Agelains tricolor > 



RANGE. 



South-western Oregon and through Calif, to Lower Calif, 



DESCRIPTION. 



Lesser wing coverts dark red, bordered with nearly pure white. 

 Otherwise similar to the preceding, except that the bill is rather more 

 slender. 



NEST AND EGGS OF THE RED-WINGS. 



The nesting habits of all the Red-winged, the Bi-colored and the Tri- 

 colored Blackbirds are practically the same and the eggs cannot always 

 be distinguished with certainty. They nest almost exclusively in 

 swampy places, where their nests are attached to the reeds or to the 

 branches of bushes. Nests have been found as high as fifteen feet from, 

 the ground, but they are rarely placed more than four or five feet up, 

 and sometimes are placed in grass tussocks on the ground. The out- 

 side of the nest is commonly made of old wet rushes, which are firmly 

 wound about the support, whether it be a clump of rushes or the branch 

 of a bush; it is lined with grasses and sometimes also with horsehair. 

 They nest in colonies and hundreds of them may be found in small 

 swamps and thousands in some of the larger ones through the West.. 

 They lay from two to five eggs, very rarely the latter number, and 

 probably most often four. These have a light blue ground, and are 

 blotched or scrawled with black or purplish. The Bi-colored Blackbird, 

 as a rule has the eggs marked with fine lines rather than the coarser 



