BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, ETC.: COWBIRD 
659 
was taken May 24, 1920, on the Mimbres, 30 miles southeast of Silver City (Kellogg). 
A molting female was taken, July 21, 1924, in the Pecos Valley, 35 miles south of 
Carlsbad; and a breeding colony was found, July 24, 1925, 8 miles south of Carlsbad, 
(Ligon).]— W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —Bulky, made largely of dried grass and Spanish moss, usually with an 
inside coating of mud; built in low trees or bushes, often in swampy places, some¬ 
times in towns. Eggs: 3 to 5, pale bluish or greenish, drab, olive, or purplish gray, 
grotesquely marked with brown and black lines. 
General Habits. —The large, Great-tailed Grackles, known as 
Jackdaws or Fantailed Grackles, have strikingly long, keeled, and 
graduated tails, and are noisy, dominant characters, with interesting 
habits. 
The breeding colony that Mr. Ligon found near Carlsbad, while 
not in town, was in a marshy draw near the parallel bridges of an 
automobile road and a railroad. A perilous as well as noisy nesting 
ground, it might seem, but the cat-tails that filled the draw afforded 
protecting cover. Great numbers of Red-winged Blackbirds were 
sitting around when the Great-tails came with food for their young 
(1926a, pp. 93-94). 
Although rare in New Mexico, in Brownsville, Texas, A. P. Smith 
says, the Jackdaws are found “in possession of the streets, competing 
with the somewhat awed, and as yet not numerous, English Sparrow, 
as scavengers of the roadway” (1910, p. 97). At San Antonio they 
even nest along the streets. 
In Brownsville, where Dr. Charles W. Townsend had an excellent 
opportunity to watch this bird, he was struck with “the great variety 
of its clear and at times musical notes and songs, mixed with others 
that were not so pleasing.” In courtship, “the males fought, or 
rather pretended to fight, with tails cocked up and wings partly spread, 
facing each other, and sometimes flying up at each other like fighting 
cocks.” The Great-tails also pose and execute “a form of dance.” 
The head and neck are stretched up nearly vertically, a position that 
gives them an absurdly attenuated look, and when several males pose 
motionless facing each other in this attitude, the effect is extraordinary. 
(1927, pp. 553-54). 
COWBIRD: Molothrus ater &ter (Boddaert) 
Description. —Length: Male about 7.7—8.2 inches, wing 4-4.6, tail, 2.9— 
3.3, bill .6-7, tarsus l.l (female considerably smaller). Bill short, broad and high 
at base, conspicuously arched above. Adult male: Head , neck, and chest brown; rest 
of plumage glossy greenish-black. Adult female: Upperparts brownish gray , faintly 
glossed with greenish, the feathers with darker centers and blackish shaft .streaks, 
especially on back; wings and tail dusky, with paler edgings, these nearly white on 
longer primaries; underparts paler, decidedly so on chin and throat, lower underparts 
usually more or less distinctly streaked. Young: Similar to adult female but duller, 
