( 9 ) . 



BULLOCK'S TROOPIAL. 



Icterus Bullockii^ Swains. 



PLATE CCCLXXXVIII. Male. 



According to Mr Nuttall, who has favoured me with so many ob- 

 servations relative to the birds described in this and the preceding vo- 

 lume, " Bullock's Oriole occurs in nearly the same localities as the 

 Yellow-headed Troopial. About fifty or sixty miles to the north-west 

 of the usual crossing-place of that branch of the La Platte called La- 

 rimie's Fork, we observed it making a nest quite similar to that of the 

 Baltimore Bird. This species, which I have since seen in upper Cali- 

 fornia, where it arrives (around Santa Barbara) in the beginning of 

 May, has the same plaintive fifing warble, but more brief and less va- 

 ried. The males also, as usual, arrive in flocks considerably before the 

 females. They have likewise the same habit of concealing themselves 

 for a length of time while carefully gleaning for small larvse, or sip- 

 ping the nectareous juices of the opening blossoms of the trees they 

 delight to frequent. On the Platte, the only trees they can resort 

 to are the Balsam poplars, which border the stream. In all respects 

 this species resembles the Common Baltimore Bird, which it supersedes 

 from the first great bifm^cation of the Platte, to the shores of the Co- 

 lumbia, extending at least as far as the borders of Old California. Mr 

 Bullock, its discoverer, also met with it throughout the table-land of 

 Mexico." . ■' ' • ' 



Since the above notice was transmitted to me, I have received ano- 

 ther from Dr TowNSEND, along with a female and a young male, both of 

 which I have figured in Plate CCCCXXXIII. « It inhabits the Rocky 

 Mountains near the Black Hills and the forests of the Columbia River. 

 In the latter place it is a rather plentiful species. Its usual note consists 

 of a single quavering call somewhat like one of the notes of the Scarlet 

 Tanager, Tanagra rubra. At other times it warbles a little, but not 

 with half the sweetness or compass of its near relative the Baltimore. 

 It is a very active species, so much so indeed that it is very difficult 

 to get a shot at it while sitting, but it is easily killed on the wing. It 

 evidently breeds here, and has probably now a nest (June 16th), but I 



