

Dimensions. 





Male. 



Inch. Lin. 



9 6 



Female. 



Inch. Lin. 



8 6 



Length 



. of tarsus . 



. 3 6 



3 3 



?? 



of middle toe 



5 



4 li 



jj 



of middle nai! 



. Hi 



o 104 



j> 



of hind toe 



1 



11 



)! 



of hind nail 



Male. 

 ich. Lin. 



i i 



Female. 

 Inch. Lin. 



1 



101 



9 



4 



4J 



6 



4| 



5 



41 



sturnid^;. 281 



plumage, having throughout central stripes of liver-brown, bordered on the chin, throat, and 

 breast with pale tile-red, and on the belly and flanks with greyish-white*. 



A young male of the first year, in Mr. Swainson's museum. — Upper plumage rich 

 blackish-brown, narrowly edged with yellowish-brown. Eye stripe, ear feathers, chin, and 

 lateral borders of the quills, tail, and under plumage buff-orange. Scarlet mark on the wing 

 very distinct ; but its feathers are edged at the tip with black, and it wants the inferior border 

 of buff-orange. 



A young female differs in the upper plumage being more broadly edged with a darker 

 brown, and in the lesser wing coverts being liver-brown, with yellowish-brown borders, there 

 being no vestige of the scarlet mark. 



Length total 

 „ of tail 

 „ of wing 

 ,, of bill above 

 „ of bill to rictus 



[88.] 2. Agelaitjs xanthocephalus. (Swains.) Saffron-headed Maize-bird. 



Sub-family, Agelains, Swains. Genus, Agelaius, Vieil. 

 Icterus icterocephalus. Bonap. Orn., i., p. 27, pi. 3, fig. 1 and 2. 

 Icterus (Xanthomus) xanthocephalus. Idem, Syn., p. 52, No. 52. 



This bird, which is very numerous in the interior of the fur-countries, was first 

 added to the American Fauna by the Expedition of Major Long to the Rocky 

 Mountains in 1820. I procured specimens in the spring of the same year, and 

 despatched them to England along with many other objects of natural history; but 

 they were irrecoverably lost after their arrival in London; and were not, therefore, 

 described by Mr. Sabine in the narrative of Sir John Franklin's first Journey. The 

 species ranges in summer to about the fifty-eighth parallel, but was not seen by us to 

 the eastward of Lake Winipeg, nor has it been found by the American naturalists 

 east of the Mississippi. It arrives on the latter river, from the southward, in the 

 middle of May, and by the 20th of the same month it reaches the Saskatchewan, 

 where it associates with the Redwings, and, being more numerous, commits even 

 greater havoc in the corn-fields. The manners of the two species are precisely 

 alike. 



* Wilson denies that the female has any traces of the red mark on the wing ; but the specimen above described 

 agrees with several authenticated females in the collection. — K. 



2 O 



