294 NOTES ON THE FAUNA 




























Nuttall compares to the syllables “gluck tsee,” followed by 
a medley of low gurgling notes. On a warm morning in 
April the males will sit upon the tops of the maple and 
apple trees in the pastures and orchards for an hour at a 
time, repeating at short intervals their jingling notes, to the 
intense satisfaction, apparently, of themselves and their 
numerous mates who sit around them in admiring circles. 
While uttering these notes the bird struts and swells like a 
turkey-cock, and with the same intention—the desire of 
pleasing his mates. 
The food of the Cow Blackbird consists principally of in- 
sects, especially flies, grubs, beetles, etc. They eat also the 
seeds of various plants, and at times join the Red- ringed 
and Crow Blackbirds in plundering the cornfields ; but the 
injury that they thus inflict is very slight, and is far more 
than overbalanced by the good they do in devouring vast ` 
numbers of noxious insects. Hence they deserve the pro- 
tection of the farmer; but as they are often found in sus- 
pieious company, viz., with Crows and Red-winged Black- 
birds, they frequently suffer the penalty of associating with 
proseribed thieves and rogues, by being shot down with 
them. 

NOTES ON THE FAUNA OF THE UPPER MISSOURI. 
BY J. G. COOPER, M. D. 











In May, eight years since, I was attached to a military 
expedition on its way to the Pacific Coast, via the Missourl - 
and Columbia Rivers, which had just been connected by ^ — 
military road constructed by Capt. John Mullan, U. S. A- — 
nu It was chiefly for the purpose of trying its practicability that 
_ the party of about two hundred and fifty men and sever 
.. officers, under the command of Major G. M. Blake, was sent | 
y this new route instead of by the Isthmus of Panama. 

