YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD. 103 
the west side of the Mississippi, beyond which, not even a 
straggler has been seen, These birds assemble in flocks, and 
in all their movements, aérial evolutions, and predatory char- 
acter, appear as the counterpart of their Red-winged relatives. 
They are also seen to frequent the ground in search of food, 
in the manner of the Cow-Bunting, or Troopial. In the 
spring season they wage war upon the insect tribes and their 
larve, like the Red-wings, but in autumn they principally 
depend on the seeds of vegetables. At Demerara, Waterton 
observed them in flocks, and, as might have been suspected 
from their habits, they were very greedy after Indian corn. 
On the 2d of May, in our western tour across the continent, 
around the Kansa Indian Agency, we now saw abundance of 
the Yellow-headed Troopial, associated with the Cowbird. 
They kept wholly on the ground in companies, the males, at 
this time, by themselves. In loose soil they dig into the earth 
with their bills in quest of insects and larve, are very active, 
straddle about with a quaint gait, and now and then, in the 
manner of the Cowbird, whistle out with great effort a chuck- 
ling note sounding like Ro-kwkkle-’ait, often varying into a 
straining squeak, as if using their utmost endeavor to make 
some kind of noise in token of sociability. Their music is, 
however, even inferior to the harsh note of the Cowbird. 
In the month of June, by the edge of a grassy marsh, in the 
open plain of the Platte, several hundred miles inland, Mr. 
Townsend found the nest of this species built under a tussock 
formed of fine grasses and canopied over like that of the 
Sturnella, or Meadow Lark. 
While essentially a bird of the prairie, this species occurs reg- 
ularly and in abundance in Wisconsin and Illinois. It has been 
observed occasionally in southern Ontario, and examples have been 
taken at Point des Monts, on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in 
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Florida. 
