DICKCISSEL. 



Spiza americatia Ridgway. 



Plate XXYII. 



BURING the month of April and May the plain, monotonous prairie west and 

 north-west of Houston, Texas, offers a magnificent sight. As far as the eye can 

 reach, the grassy savanna is covered with a carpet of highly colored flowers. Phloxes', 

 verbenas ^ lark-spurs, crowfoots", gaillardias*, coreopsis ^ and many other flowers 

 impart these rich prairies with a beauty peculiarly their own. Everywhere we find the 

 prostrate, very prickly stems of the mimosa or sensitive plant*, the rosy-purplish 

 flower-balls of which exhale a delicate honey-like fragrance. The leaves of this interesting 

 plant are very sensitive, bending, folding, and apparently shrinking away from the touch 

 of the hand. Pure white, deliciously scented spider-lilies' grow and flower abundantly 

 in the black soil, and blue-eyed grass' and the pretty nemastylis® are also found in 

 favorable places. Yuccas and opuntias, the latter armed with formidable spines, are 

 everywhere numerous. Here and there the prairie is dotted with small trees and shrubs. 



Among the birds, which chiefly appeal to the t)oetic feelings of the country jieople 

 and move their admiration and enthusiasm, the Dickcissel or Black-throated Bunting 

 is especially noteworthy. It is one of the most numerous and familiar inhabitants of 

 these prairie districts, attracting the attention of even the indolent by its incessant 

 chirping and twittering, which falls on the ear from all sides. Nowhere I found this 

 bird more abundant than in the prairies of south-eastern Texas; in the interior of 

 the State it is not so numerous. In the prairie regions of south-western Missouri 

 and Illinois it is one of the most common summer sojourners. In most parts of eastern 

 Wisconsin, as far north as Howard's Grove, Sheboygaq Co., it is abundantly met with. 

 From Massachusetts and New York west to the Rocky Mountains and north to southern 

 Ontario and South Dakota it is found in all suitable localities. I have never seen it in 

 Alabama, Georgia, or Florida. In fact it is rare or entirely absent east of the Alle- 

 ghanies. 



The New England record of the Dickcissel* is interesting, though not so satis- 

 factory as might be desired. "It seems that we have in this case a bird of the Carolinian 

 and part of the AUeghanian. Fauna, of rare though constant occurrence as far north as 

 Massachusetts, yet irregular in its numbers during successive years, and locally distrib- 

 uted moreover." It has been occasionally found in certain spots, some seasons, and 

 again, it is not to bfe found in the same places at all. 



The Dickcissel is one of the latest arrivals in spring, and one of the first to depart 

 in autumn, In Texas it arrives about the middle of April, in south-western Missouri 

 about April 28, and in eastern Wisconsin not before May 15, appearing always in small 

 flocks from twelve to twenty and more. 



1 Phlox Drummondii and Pb. pilosa. a Verbena Anbletia. s Ranunculus Texana. t Gaillardia lanceolata and G. 

 pu'chella. " Coreopsis Drummondii, C. auricnlata. 6 Scbrankia uncinata. i Hymenocallis Galvestonensis. » Sisyrin- 

 cliium Bermadianutn and S. mueronatuzn, » Nemastylis gemininifiora. 



* See New England Bird-life. By W. A. Stearns and Dr. Elliott Coues. Vol. I, p. 379 ff. 



