RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. 255 



rank growth of marsh grasses, rashes, and sedges. The marshy edges of lakes and 

 rivers are also chosen for a home. Marsh Wrens are often nesting close to the Red- 

 wing's domicile, and the latter are sometimes found in the colonies of the Yellowheads. 

 At quite a distance we hear the sweet con-cur-ee or their whistling tU-tU, besides their 

 common call-note. Their bodies of jetty black, with a broad patch of vermillion on the 

 shoulder, which sparkle in the sun's rays with pleasing effect, and their activity combine 

 to make the Red-wing one of our most beautiful and interesting familiar birds. The 

 June landscape, especially the swamp, would seem incomplete without the Red-wing. I 

 can scarcely imagine how its notes would sound in the dense woods or on the mountain 

 side. They belong to the swamp like the water, the sedges, and rushes. So much 

 depends on association of familiar sounds with the season, or with circumstances under 

 which they occur. As soon as the birds have settled in their haunts, the male is seen 

 perched upon the summit of a bush standing in the water, where he utters almost 

 incessantly his charming con-cur-ee and his whistling tu-tii, or he flies around in short 

 and graceful circles, and sometimes also hovers in the air for seconds. This circular 

 flying and hovering, which is always accompanied by its loud and peculiar notes, is 

 usually observed when the nest is approached ; doubtless the ever watchful and attentive 

 male tries by these excited manoeuvres to attract the attention of the enemy to some 

 other spot. If the nest is pillaged, for several days the pair evince great distress, and make 

 frequent lamentations, but they soon prepare to remedy the disaster. They are so 

 tenacious of the selected locality, that they often build a second and even a third nest 

 within close proximity of the first one. Often only a few bushes are found in the Red- 

 wing's haunts, and frequently the swamps are covered with an open growth of alders, 

 button-bushes, and spiraea. In all the small sloughs of the prairies of Illinois it is a 

 common bird, and I found it equally abundant in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, 

 and Florida. Wherever found it is a familiar bird, owing to its charming beauty, its 

 noisy disposition, and its abundance. In small swamps only one pair occurs, while in 

 larger ones often a dozen or more may be observed. It has been recorded by Prof. R. 

 Ridgw^ay, that "the males are polygamous, each having under his protection from two 

 to three or four demure looking females, hardly half his size, and dressed in homely garb, 

 who attend quietly and assiduously to their domestic duties, while their lord and master 

 mounts guard upon some prominent perch near by and cheers them with his song." 



The nest I have alw^ays found in clumps of sedges and marsh grasses, but other 

 ornithologists have often detected it also in bushes five to seven feet, and even 

 higher, from the ground. Outwardly it is composed of dry slender pieces of sedges and 

 grass-stems which are securely fastened into a bunch of rushes or other swamp grasses. 

 These materials appear to be used only when wet, and they are well woven together, 

 forming a very compact and substantial structure w^hen dry. The interior of the nest 

 is made of a little rotten wood, roots, a few pieces of muck and the cavity is lined with 

 finer grasses. Usually the nest is so well hidden among the slender stems of a bunch of 

 marsh grasses that it is not readily found. The eggs, usually four, rarely five in num 

 ber, are light blue, marbled, lined, blotched, and clouded with dark purple and black 

 markings, almost entirely about the larger end, but vary considerably in this respect. 



The eggs hatch in thirteen or fourteen days and the young are cared for by their 



