File:Handbook of birds of the western United States, including the great plains, great basin, Pacific slope, and lower Rio Grande Valley (1902) (14755424352).jpg

Identifier: handbookofbird00bail (find matches)
Title: Handbook of birds of the western United States, including the great plains, great basin, Pacific slope, and lower Rio Grande Valley
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Bailey, Florence Merriam, b. 1863
Subjects: Birds -- West (U.S.)
Publisher: Boston New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
a distinguished personage. GENUS XANTHOCEPHALUS. 497. Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus (Bonap.). Yellow- headed Blackbird. Bill decidedly shorter than head, its depth through base less than halfthe length of the exposed culmen ; culmen straight, flattened ; sexes dif-ferent in size; wing long and pointed ; tarsus nearly one fourth as longas Aving; claws large, lateral ones reaching beyond base of middle one.Adult male in summer: black except for yellow or orange of head, throat,and chest, and white patch on wings. Adult male in winter: similar, butyellow of top of head obscured by brownish tips to feathers. Adultfemale: brownish, throat and chest dull yellowish, breast mixed withwhite. Young male in first ivinter: similar to female, but larger and deepercolored. Male : length (skins) 8.60-10.10, wing 5.32-5.73, tail 3.66-4.27,bill .83-.99. Female: length (skins) 7.50-8.30, wing 4.33-4.64, tail 3.10-3.45, bill .77-.83. Distribution. — Western North America from British Columbia and Hud-
Text Appearing After Image:
YKLLOW-ilEADEI) HLAcKIURD BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, ETC. 289 son Bay. south across Mexican tablelands and east to Wisconsin. Indiana,and Texas; easuallv to Ontario and the eastern United States. Nest. — Fastened to tale stems or rushes 10 to 80 inches above thewater of a marsh, made of coarse marsh grasses, tules, reeds, and rushes,woven toj^ether and lined with finer grasses. Eggs: o to ■). from g-rayishto greenish white, profusely and evenly blotched and speckled withbrowns and grays. Fixxl. — Small seeds, such as wild rice, and, in cultivated districts, occa-sionally corn, oats, and Avheat; but mainly insects, especially grasshoppersand locusts, together with their eggs and larv*. From their breeding grounds in the sloughs and tule marshes theyellow-headed blackbirds scatter out and wander over the whole ofthe western plains countr)-, appearing in flocks with grackles, red-wings, or cowbirds in the characteristic hordes of the fall migration,or in flocks by themselves in fields an

Note About Images