IGTEIUBJE — AGEL^INJE: MARSH BLACKBIliUS. 



401 



The faultluss fall dress of black, white, 



ed^ed witli yelldwish ; hill hlackish-horn ; feet brown 

 arul hutf is wnru only for a brief period ; and even iu spring and summer, most males are found 

 to have yellowish touches in the black, especially of the under parts. The " delirious song" 

 vd while the males are trooping their way tcj their breeding-grcnrnds, and before the 



ulor 



99. 



Yellowish- 



the sm 



is only heave 



midsummer change of feather. <? in fall, ? , and young, entirely ditfereut iu col 

 brown above, brownish-yellow below ; crown and back conspicuously, nape, rump, and sides 

 less broadly, streaked with black; crown with a median and lateral light stripe; wings and 

 tad blackish, pale-edged; bill brown, paler below. In this, the ordinary condition, the <J is 

 only known liy superior size. FaU birds are more bufly than the spring ? . The $ ciianging 

 shows confused characters of both sexes (see p. 89) ; but in any plumage the species may be 

 reco°nized by the stilEsh, extremely acute tail-feathers, iu connection with its special dimensions. 

 .J: length 7.00-7.50; extent 11.50-12.25; wing 3.50-3.80; tail 2.75-3.00; tarsus 1.00; 

 middle toe and claw 1.25. 9 : Length 6.50-7.00 ; extent 10.50-11.25 ; wing 3.25-3.50, etc., 

 averaging i an inch loss in length and an inch in extent. Chiefly Eastern U. S. and Canada; 

 N. to 54° in the region of the Saskatchewan, W. not ordinarily beyond the central plains, but 

 occurs in Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. Winters wholly extralimital. In May, the 

 vivacious, voluble, and eccentric " Bobo- 

 links " pass North, spreading over the 

 meadows of the Middle and Northern 

 States from the Atlantic to Kansas and 

 Dakota, perfecting its black dress, and 

 breeding in June and July. After 

 midsummer change the "Keed-bird" or 

 "Rice-bird" comes back, thronging the 

 marshes in immense flocks with the lUack- 

 birds ; has simply a chirping note, feeds on 

 the wild oats and wUd rice, and becomes 

 extremely fat and is accounted a great 

 delicacy. The name "ortolan," applied 

 by some guimers and restaurateurs to this 

 bird, as well as to the Carolina Eail {Por- 

 zana Carolina) is in either case a strange 

 misnomer, the Ortolan being a fringilline bird of Europe, Emheriza liortulana L. (Lat. hortii- 

 lamis, relating to a garden.) In the West Indies, where this bird retires in winter, as it does 

 also to Central and South America, it is called "butter-bird." The names "bobolink" and 

 "meadow-wink" are iu imitation of its cry; "skunk blackbird" notes the resemblance in 

 color to the obnoxious quadruped. The migrations are performed mostly at night, when in 

 May and early September one may hear the mellow metallic " chink" of the invisible passen- 

 gers. Nest on the ground, artfully concealed in the grass; eggs 4-6, 0.90 X 0.65, stone-gray, 

 dotted, mottled, and clouded with dark browns. 



MOLO'THRUS. (Gr. ^loXoflpof, or /joXo/3pof, vagabond, tramp, parasite.) Cowbirds. Bill 

 short, stout, conic and fringilline, about l as long as head ; but entirely nnnotched and 

 unbristled, with little bent of commissure, the broad culmen running well up on the forehead, 

 the nostrQs well in advance of the feathers. Wings long and pointed, the first 3 primaries 

 entering into the tip, rest rapidly graduated. Tail shorter than wings, nearly even or a little 

 rounded, tending to divaricate in the middle, the feathers broad and plane to their rounded ends. 

 Eeet strong ; tarsus not shorter than middle toe. ^ black and lustrous, without red or yellow ; 

 9 plain black or brown. Terrestrial, but not specially palustrine ; eminently gregarious and 

 polygamous, or rather communistic, never mating or building nests ; thus parasitic, like the Old 

 World cuckoos ; no musical ability. To the single species long notorious in the U. S. , a second 



26 



Fig. 257. 

 Nichols sc.) 



- Bobyliiik, tf, reduceil. (Slieppard del. 



