3o6 Bird Studies. 



They are not so noisy or musical, and are less frequently seen because 

 of their haunts than the Crow Blackbirds, and yet their presence is often be- 

 trayed by characteristic blackbird-like notes, and in the spring their efforts at 

 song are very agreeable. 



The birds are rather more than nine inches and a half long. Their eyes 

 are yellow or straw color. In the breeding season the males are unbroken 

 glossy bluish black. The female is at the same period of a general deep dull 

 lead color shading in the upper parts into dull greenish having an olive gloss. 

 These colors prevail in the sexes at other seasons of the year but are suffused 

 or concealed more or less, varying greatly in individuals, by rusty brown 

 and shades of buff. 



The birds are northern in their breeding range, choosing a variety of 

 nesting sites from low evergreen trees to bushes and even the ground. The 

 nests are built of twigs and grasses, and are lined with fine grasses. The 

 birds lay from three to six or seven eggs. These are pale sage green in 

 color, or greenish white, thickly marked with blotches of different shades of 

 brown. They are about an inch in length and a little less than three quarters 

 of an inch in width. • 



The birds are distributed over Eastern North America, west to the 

 Plains. North of the United States they range west to Alaska. They breed 

 from the northern borders of the United States northward. They winter 

 from Virginia southward. 



Brewer's Blackbird occurs in Western North' America from the Great 

 Plains to the Pacific Ocean. It ranges from the region of the Saskatche- 

 Brewer's Blackbird ^^^ south to the table-lands of Mexico, breeding in the 

 scoiecophagus cyanocepha- northem parts of its range, and at high altitudes in the 



lus (wagi.). mountains, and wintering in the more southern part of 



its range. It is of casual occurrence in Illinois and Louisiana, and has been 

 recorded once from South Carolina. The birds are somewhat larger than 

 the Rusty Blackbirds, averaging about ten inches long. 



The differences in color correlated with sex are similar, the males being 

 clear black with a purplish undertone instead of blue, which is most notice- 

 able on the head and neck. The female is brownish slate in color, and de- 

 cidedly glossy olive green with a brown tone on the head and neck. In the 

 changes of color that correlate with season, the obscuration of the ground 

 color by rusty and buff is much less in these birds than in the Rusty Black- 



