The Tricolored Redwing 



upon nest-building. In 1916, especially, nesting (in the San Joaquin 

 Valley) had been delayed by an unusual cold spell accompanied by 

 west winds. When at last, about May 20th, nest-building was undertaken 

 in spite of adverse weather conditions, many of the birds were overtaken 

 with the duties of motherhood before the nests were finished. Eggs 

 were deposited upon the undried muck, which affords the stiffening, or 

 body, for the tricolor's basket. In most cases the nest was neatly lined 

 with coiled grasses after the first egg was deposited, but a few birds 

 immediately abandoned work upon the nest and left all their eggs upon 

 a bare mud bottom. Others carefully worked the lining material under 

 the egg or eggs. Many more, however, in their zeal for completing the 

 nest in proper style, overlooked or failed to meet the claims of the eggs, 

 and neglected to raise them with the new flooring. As a result, buried 

 and half-buried eggs were very common. Some nests would contain one 

 egg quite buried, another half buried, and two quite clear. 



The nesting material is invariably laid on wet. This assures not 

 only pliability in working, but rigidity in the finished product. Although 

 I had always a wholesome respect for the ingenuity of these weavers, I 

 received a most impressive lesson upon a late occasion. In the course of a 

 laborious piece of census work, I had selected four choice sets of eggs for 

 color variation, placing them, duly marked, for convenient carriage, in an 

 empty nest, and covering them with another. Upon emerging from 

 the swamp and crossing a bit of dry ground in the open, the basket bowl 

 with its precious contents was suddenly snatched from my hand and 

 precipitated to the ground. A long strand of grass had gradually un- 

 wound itself from the under nest until it trailed upon the ground, and 

 I had stepped on it. So stout was the strand and so deeply was it 

 imbedded into the structure of the nest that it tore the whole lot from 

 my hand in a trice. Nearly every egg was smashed. The strand was 

 five feet long, by measure, all once neatly coiled in the foundation of the 

 blackbird's nest. 



Unlike the eggs of most other birds, those of the Redwings (Agelaius 

 sp.) are much handsomer after blowing than before. The semi-transpar- 

 ence of the blue shell allows the brilliant orange of the yolk to show 

 through, thus producing a dirty, muddy, sickly color, which is anything 

 but inviting. Cleared of this clashing orange, however, the Redwings' 

 eggs, for such time as they do not fade, are of the handsomest. 



The eggs of the Tricolored Redwing are normally of a pale niagara 

 green tint, sharply and sparingly marked — small-blotched or short- 

 scrawled — with an intense brownish black pigment. The variation, not 

 in the quality but in the application of this single pigment, determines 



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