Interior of British North America . 83 
I find no notes concerning them in my journal, which I have care¬ 
fully gone over. The nests which I found were usually, as above 
noted, in swampy thickets, about six feet from the ground, of about 
the same size as those of the American Robin, and made much in the 
same way, of sticks, mud, &c., and lined with hair and fine grass; 
they were generally affixed to the contiguous stems of a willow- 
bush. Now, whether in thus describing the nest I am speaking 
of S.ferrugineus or S. cyanocephalus , I am at a loss to know. All 
I can say is that I obtained the two birds in the same locality; 
but one was early in the spring, and the other in June. Whether 
one is a more northern bird than the other, or whether one builds 
on the ground, and the other on bushes, I cannot at present 
undertake to say; further researches must determine. In the 
meantime I will observe that I found one or other of these birds 
common from York Factory, on Hudson's Bay, to the Saskatcha- 
wan Plains, where they remained till late in October. S. ferru - 
gineuslaas been noticed in the f Fauna Bor.-Am./ and Mr. Murray 
records specimens from Hudson's Bay; but, except a specimen 
from Pembina, where the international boundary-line crosses the 
Red River of the North, which is now in the Smithsonian 
Institution, S. cyanocephalus had not, I believe, been previously 
obtained in the interior of British North America. Now that I see 
Mr. Ross's list, however, I find that he has also procured it on 
the Mackenzie. 
81. Quiscalus versicolor. 
In September I found the Crow Blackbird sparingly between 
Hudson's Bay and Lake Winipeg, observing the last one on the 
Lower Saskatchawan on the 4th of October. The following 
spring, I did not see this species at Fort Carlton before the last 
week in April; so that it is not nearly so early a bird as the 
Rusty Grackle. M. Bourgeau found the nests clustered together 
in a willow-thicket, at the end of June, on the Saskatchawan 
Plains; they were over six feet above the ground, and no mud was 
used in their manufacture. One was also found in the old nest 
of a Magpie. With regard to the peculiar mode of carrying its 
tail which this bird has during flight, I noticed that it was only 
done by the males, and that instead of being a twist of the whole 
tail, as has been supposed, and which it certainly resembles, it is 
g 2 
