YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD. 
XANTHOCEPHALUS XANTHOCEPHALUS. 
CuHarR. Male: head, neck, and breast yellow; large patch on wing 
white; other parts black. Female and young: general colgr blackish 
brown; wings without the white spot; throat and breast dull yellow. 
Length 9 to 11 inches. 
Nest. — Of dried grass, firmly woven and fastened to twigs of a bush or 
stalks of rushes, in a marsh or swampy meadow. 
Eggs. — 2-6; grayish white, sometimes with a green tint, irregularly 
marked with brown; 1.05 X 0.70. 
The Yellow-headed Troopial, though long known as an 
inhabitant of South America, was only recently added to the 
fauna of the United States by Major Long’s expedition. It 
was seen in great numbers near the banks of the River Platte, 
around the villages of the Pawnees, about the middle of May ; 
and the different sexes were sometimes observed associated in 
separate flocks, as the breeding season had not yet probably 
commenced. The range of this fine species is, apparently, 
from Cayenne, in tropical America, to the banks of the River 
Missouri, where Mr. Townsend and myself observed examples 
not far from the settled line of Missouri State. It has been 
seen by Dr. Richardson, in summer, as far as the 58th par- 
allel. Its visits in the United States are yet wholly confined to 
