340 



N£^8TS AND EGGS OF 



flocks with the Long-tailed Grackles, commoa Cowblrds, Brewer's, Red-winged and 

 Yellow-headed Blackbirds. He found its eggs in the nests of Bullock's, Hooded and 

 the Orchard Orioles, once in the nest of the Yellow-breasted Chat, and Red-winged 

 Blackbird, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher and Texan Cardinal (Pyrrlmloxia sinuata). The 

 eggs of the Red-eyed Cowbird are plain bluish-green, similar to that in the eggs as 

 .90x.70, the extremes being .95x.75 and .82x.65. 



497. YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD. Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus 

 (Bonp.) Geog. Dist. — Western North America to the Pacific, east regularly to Wis- 

 consin, Illinois, Kansas and Texas. 

 Accidental in the Atlantic States. 



The handsome Yellow - headed 

 Blackbird is found generally dis- 

 tributed on the prairies in all favorable 

 localities from Texas on the south to 

 Illinois and Wisconsin, thence to the 

 Pacific. A common bird in the West, 

 nesting in May and June. It collects in 

 colonies to breed in marshy places any- 

 where in its general range, often in 

 company with the Red-winged Black- 

 bird. The nests are usually placed in 

 the midst ®f large marshes, attached to 

 the tall fiags and grasses. They are 

 generally large, light, but thick-brim- 

 meu, made of interwoven grasses and 

 sedges impacted together. The eggs 

 are stated to range from two to six in 

 number, but the usual number is four. 

 In the hundreds of sets that have come 

 into my hands only three contained five 

 eggs of each. Their ground-color is 

 dull grayish-white, in some grayish- 

 green, profusely covered with small 

 blotches and specks of drab, purplish- 

 brown and umber. Their average size 

 is 1.12X.75. 



498. RED - WINGED BLACK- 



BIRD. Agelaius phanieeus (Linn.) 



Geog. Dist. — North America in general, 

 49T. Yellow-headed Blackbird. fpQm Great Slave Lake SOUth tO Costa 



Rica, exceptiiig Western Mexico and Lower Colorado Valley, iSouthern Florida, 

 the Gulf coast and the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas during the breeding 

 season. 



The Red-winged Starling or Swamp Blackbird is found from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific, and as far north as the 57th parallel, breeding more or less abundantly 

 wherever found, from Florida and Texas to the Saskatchewan country. In its native 

 marshes during the breeding season, which is in May and June, a loud chorus of 

 discord and harmony may be heard from the Red-wings, and above all the strange, 

 reverberating Icong-qner-ree, kong-gver-ree. '"*•" """* '" "="<>"■" ^^t„•u ir. «aa^c «« 



