345 



FAMILY XVI.*— AGELAIN^E. MARSH-BLACKBIRDS. 

 Genus V.f— QUISCALUS, Vieill. CROW-BLACKBIRD. 



BREWER'S BLACKBIRD. 



- Quiscalus Brewerii, jiud. 



PLATE CCCCLXLII.— Male. 



The country around Fort Union, which is situated a few miles above the 

 confluence of the Yellow Stone river and the Missouri, consists of a large 

 naked prairie, bounded to the eastward by a range of singular hills, both in 

 their form and diversity of altitude. This prairie, like all others in that 

 section of the country, is somewhat sterile, covered with a superabundance 

 of cactus of at least two kinds, and becomes burnt and dried as early as the 

 beginning of August. The hills themselves are more or less abrupt, stony, 

 and yet covered with many curious species of plants. These hills extend 

 for several miles, at about the same distance from the banks of the Missouri; 

 along their tops or their declivities, many rare species of birds are found 

 during spring and summer; but more are met with on the surface of the 

 great prairie below. At moderate distances are seen more or less extensive 

 ravines, where a few scanty dwarfish trees, and tall rough weeds or grasses 

 are found along the margins of the small and mostly dried up rivulets that 

 meander through them. Reader, it is along the banks of these streamlets, 

 and perhaps on the branches of the trees which I have mentioned, that 

 Brewer's Blackbird may be found during almost all the morning rambles of 

 the student of Nature. Groups of seven or eight are seen to alight on the 

 branches in a loose manner, and in silence. They soon move upward or 

 downward, and allow you to approach within some fifteen or twenty paces of 

 them; and uttering their notes whilst you are watching their movements, you 

 are at once assured that it is a species as yet unknown to the naturalists of 

 our country, and therefore procure several of them in a few moments. 



They do not evince the pertness so usually accompanying our other birds 

 of this family, but look all the while as if unsatisfied with their present abode 



* See vol. iv. p. 49. | Ibid. p. 51. 



Vol. VII. 48 



