258 LAND-BIRDS. 



or blackish, with lighter edgings, median and superciliary 

 lines. Beneath, white or whitish, sharply and thickly dark- 

 streaked (except on the throat). 



b. The nest is built in swamps, and on meadows or 

 marshes, either on the ground, when it is generally placed 

 upon a tussock, or in a bush, the alder being frequently 

 chosen for this purpose. Says Mr. Maynard : " I have found 

 the nests on an island in the marshes of Essex River, placed 

 on trees twenty feet from the ground ! In one case, where 

 the nest was placed on a slender sapling fourtieen feet high, ' 

 that swayed with the slightest breeze, the nest was constructed 

 after the manner of our Baltimore Qrioles, prettily woven of 

 the bleached seaweed called eel-grass. So well constructed 

 was this nest, and so much at variance with the usual style, 

 that had it not been for the female sitting on it, I should 

 have taken it for a nest of I. Baltimore. It was six inches 

 deep." The nest of the Red-winged Blackbird is generally 

 constructed of dry grasses or partly hairs (occasionally 

 also of roots), which are firmly attached to any neighboring 

 branches or stalks, or which form a very neat hollow in the 

 grass. In eastern Massachusetts it is finished soon after the 

 middle of May. The eggs of each set are four or five, 

 average 1.00 X -75 of an inch, and are very faintly blue, with 

 a few scrawls and often blotches (chiefly at the larger end) 

 of dark brown, black, and rarely lilac. 



c. The Red-winged Blackbirds pass the winter in many of 

 the Southern States. Wilson, in recording his observations 

 there, says : " Sometimes they appeared driving about like 

 an enormous black cloud carried before the wind, varying its 

 shape every moment. Sometimes suddenly rising from the 

 fields around me with a noise like thunder; while the glitter- 

 ing of innumerable wings of the brightest vermilion amid the 

 black cloud they formed, produced on these occasions a very 

 striking and splendid effect. Then descending like a torrent, 

 and covering the branches of some detached grove, or clump 

 of trees, the whole congregated multitude commenced one 

 general concert or chorus, that I have plainly distinguished 

 at the distance of more than two miles, and when listened to 



