656 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
all are harmful; many are weevils, some of which live upon acorns and other nuts. 
Ants and wasps amount to 15 per cent. Caterpillars, with a few moths and pupae, 
are the largest item of food and amount to over 41 per cent, and include codling moth 
larvae. Grasshoppers and alfalfa weevils are also eaten. The black olive scale was 
found in 45 of the 162 stomachs examined. The vegetable food is practically all 
fruit (19 per cent) and in cherry season consists largely of that fruit. Eating small 
fruits is the bird’s worst trait, but it will do serious harm only when very numerous. 
In New Mexico, it was seen eating caterpillars that defoliate willows and wild plum 
trees (Cockerill). 
General Habits. —The brilliant orange and black Bullock Oriole, 
which frequents the tops of the tallest trees, arrives at Mesilla Park 
about the middle of April, Professor Merrill writes, the males appear¬ 
ing first. As he says, “they swing the nests in cottonwoods and 
mulberries in abundance and the young are flying by the first of July. 
They leave in October.” While the young are in the nest, Professor 
Merrill has “watched the parents fly back and forth time and time 
again, bearing back each time an insect apiece, usually a grasshopper, 
as they were most numerous then. Searching among the trees as they 
do, they eat many other insects and larvae from hidden cocoons. 
The fruit eaten is negligible” (MS). 
Although Mr. Ligon has found them in suitable places up to 6,500 
feet, all over the State, they were found most commonly among cotton¬ 
woods along watercourses, especially on the Rio Grande and the Pecos. 
Naturally enough, the clear pipe of the richly colored Bullock, followed 
by his full sweet song, becomes one of the pleasant memories of the 
field worker who, having crossed the arid plains, has reached the grate¬ 
ful shade and verdure of the cottonwood bottoms. 
BREWER BLACKBIRD: Efiphagus cyanocephalus cyanocephalus (Wagler) 
Description.— Length: 8.7-10.2 inches, wing 4.G-5.2, tail 3.8-4.5. Adult 
male: Black, head and neck glossed with violet, the rest of the plumage with bluish 
green (more highly glossed in winter); iris pale yellow or yellowish white. Adult 
female: Head , neck, and under parts dark brownish gray, faintly glossed with violet on 
head and neck, and green on underparts; upperparts darker, wings and tail more 
glossed with bluish green (paler anteriorly in winter). Young: Like winter females, 
but feathers with different texture and without gloss. Immature male in first 
winter: Like adult male, but feathers largely tipped with grayish brown. 
Ranged—B reeds mainly in Transition Zone from southern British Columbia, 
central Alberta, and central Manitoba south to central Texas, southern New Mexico, 
Arizona, and northern Lower California; winters from southern British Columbia, 
southern Manitoba, Kansas, southern Colorado (a few) and western South Carolina 
south to Guatemala and southern Mexico. In migration east to Iowa and, 
casually, Illinois. Recorded from Hudson Bay and Wisconsin (nest). 
State Records. —As a summer resident in New Mexico, the Brewer Blackbird 
occurs only locally. It was reported as breeding at Las Vegas, 6,500 feet (Mitchell); 
Halls Peak, 8,000 feet (Barber); near Beaver Lake, 7,000 feet (Ligon); and Mesilla, 
3,800 feet (Merrill); common and presumably breeding at Wingate, 7,000 feet, June 
18-29, 1905 (Hollister); [two apparently nesting on the Rio Pueblo, Taos County, 
