BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA 
205 
any sort of garbage suited to tlieir appetite ; sometimes they pursue and 
attack the small terns and gulls, to force them to disgorge the small fish 
that they have captured. They are able to capture live fish with con¬ 
siderable dexterity, but cannot feed on the wing. During the winter and 
spring, the Fish Crows are very fond of feeding on many kinds of ber¬ 
ries. As spring advances, and the early fruits ripen, the Fish Crows be¬ 
come fond of the mulberry, and select the choicest of the ripe figs, more 
especially when they are feeding their young. A dozen are often seen 
at a time, searching for the tree which has the best figs, and so trouble¬ 
some do they become in the immediate vicinity of Charleston, that it is 
found necessary to station a man near a fig tree with a gun. They also 
eat pears, as well as various kinds of huckleberries. 
Family ICTERHL®. Blackbirds, Orioles, Etc. 
Niue species and one race of this family are found in Pennsylvania. With the ex¬ 
ception of the Yellow-headed Blackbird, which occurs sometimes, it is said, in the 
western part of the state, straggling here from western North America, all of these 
birds are common ; some reside with us during all months of the year ; the Rusty 
Blackbird retires considerably north of this latitude to breed, but all the others rear 
their young within our limits. In the Cowbird and Bobolink the bill is short, stout 
and very similar to that of a sparrow’s, but this organ in other birds of this family is 
rather long and slender. In the neighborhood of Lake Erie the Redwing is known 
to gunners as Reed-bird, and I have heard farmers who reside in the vicinity of 
Conneaut lake in Crawford county, and also others living about Lake Erie, say that 
these “Reed-birds” commit serious depredations in their cornfields in the latter 
part of summer and in the early fall. 
Genus DOLICHONYX Swainson. 
Dolichonyx oryzivorus (Linn.) 
Bobolink ; Reed-bird. 
Description (Plate 26 male and female in spring). 
Bill short, stout, conical and much shorter than head ; tail feathers sharp-pointed 
and stiff, quite like a woodpecker’s; claws all very large; middle toe very long, 
measuring with claw 1.25 inches ; bill dark, lighter at base of lower mandible ; legs 
and feet (freshly killed specimens) brownish-yellow ; iris brown. General color of 
male in spring and during breeding season (June and July) black; the nape 
brownish-cream color; a patch on the side ot the breast, the scapulars and rump 
white, shading into light ash on the upper tail-coverts and the back below the inter¬ 
scapular region. In autumn similar to the female. In the early autumn males are 
often seen with black feathers (sometimes though seldom in patches) on the breast. 
Female , yellowish beneath; two stripes on the top of the head, and the upper 
parts throughout, except the back of the neck and rump, and including all the wing 
feathers generally, dark-brown, all edged with brownish-yellow; which becomes 
whiter nearer the tips of the quills ; the sides sparsely streaked with dark-brown, 
and a similar stripe behind the eye ; there is a superciliary and a median band of 
yellow on the head. 
