Ke 
* OF NEW ENGLAND. 259 
“General appearance glossy black; whole plumage, however, 
brightly glossed with reddish-violet, bronzed purple, steel-blue, 
and greeen; * * * wings and tail black, with violet reflec- 
tions, more bluish on the latter; the wing-coverts frequently 
tipped with steel-blue or violet. Bill, tarsi, and toes pure 
black ; iris sulphur-yellow.” About 123 inches long. Female 
considerably smaller, and less lustrous. 
= 
be 
1) 
Fig. 14. Crow Blackbird (4). 
(b). The nest is placed from six to sixty feet above the 
ground, most often in an evergreen, or perhaps occasionally in 
the hollow of a tree. It is a rather coarse structure, often 
cemented with mud. Its chief materials are small sticks, dry 
grasses, and other vegetable matter. In Eastern Massachu- 
setts, it is finished about the middle of May, after which four 
or five eges are laid. These average about 1°25 & ‘90 of an 
inch, and exhibit great variation. The following descriptions 
are taken from several eggs before me. (1) Strongly bluish, 
with almost imperceptible lilac markings, and a few spots and 
thick scrawls of blackish-brown. (2) Strongly greenish, marked 
abundantly with dull, faint brown, and a few blackish scrawls. 
(3) Light creamy gray, with some scrawls much subdued, as if 
washed out, or washed over with the ground-color, and others 
heavy and prominent, suggesting a tremulous hand-writing 
made with a very broad-nibbed pen. (4) Of an indefinite light 
shade, with numerous small blotches of a subdued, dull brown. 
(5) Dirty white, minutely marked with light purplish brown, 
