Yellow-Headed Blackbird 
227 
Handsome 
Eggs 
The typical finished nest is a fijm, inverted, cone-shaped, basket-like 
affair, suspended among the rigid stems of last year’s reeds, only excep- 
tionally among new growth. The height is usually eight to ten inches. 
A skillful, industrious bird will build one of these large, beautifully 
woven and lined nests all complete in two to four days. When it is con- 
sidered that a single bird has not only to collect but skillfully to manipu- 
late all this large mass of material, it is surprising to see these bulky 
nests spring up almost over night. 
The eggs in a set are three to five, usually four. They are laid one 
each day, the first egg one to five days after the completion of the nest, 
depending apparently upon the time it takes the nest to dry out. All 
the eggs of a set are alike in color and shape, but there 
is considerable variation in different sets. The out- 
line varies from almost elliptical to a pronounced 
ovate. The measurements vary from 1.12 inches to .94 inches in 
length by .76 to .64 of an inch in breadth. The shell is smooth and 
glossy. The ground-color of the four eggs varies from a soiled greyish 
white in some sets to a pale olive-white in others, and in rare instances 
has a faint pink-lilac hue. When these tints correspond, as is usually 
the case, to similar shades in the markings, there result eggs of a general 
dull gray, -olive, or pink-lilac hue. The markings vary from a fine close 
speckling, almost uniform over the entire egg, to large blotches scattered 
at the smaller end and becoming confluent at the larger end. Most of 
the eggs present very fine and irregular tracings and spots of black or 
dark brown about the larger end, suggesting the more pronounced zig- 
zags on the eggs of other Blackbirds and Orioles. 
The usual period of incubation is ten days. 
The young remain in the nest about twelve days, when they begin a 
precarious life in the swaying reed-tops, where they are cared for for 
some days by both parents. The curiously variegated, generally bufify- 
toned, plumage of the young birds blends well with their surroundings 
at this time ; and, as they are indisposed to move, it quite effectively con- 
ceals them. 
The nesting season over, old and young leave the sloughs and marshes 
and, congregating in straggling flocks, sometimes accompanied by Red- 
wings and Crackles, wander over the upland for a short time before de- 
parting for the South. They rarely assemble in the 
North in the large compact flocks so characteristic of Migration 
the Redwing and the Rusty. Their southward move- 
ment begins early, and they have largely left the northern part of their 
range by the first of September. Stragglers, however, may occasionally 
be found even until snowfall. Throughout their winter range in the 
southern United States they roam about in flocks, feeding familiarly 
about cattle-ranches, farms, and the outskirts of towns and villages, lead- 
ing a sort of Cowbird existence. 
The song of the male Yellowhead, if song it may be called, is a most 
remarkable, unmusical and unbirdlike effort. At a time of the year when 
