Handbook of birds of the western United States, including the great plains, great basin, Pacific slope, and lower Rio Grande valley (1904) (14568771949)

Identifier: handbookofbirds00bail (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: 1904 (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

Text Appearing Before Image:

. 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 wing; 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 winter: similar to female, but larger and deepercolored. Male : length (skins) 8.(>0-U).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:

YI.l.LUU-llKADKl) IM.A^ KHIKD BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, ETC. 289 son Bay, south across Mexican tablelands and east to Wisconsin, Indiana,and Texas; casually to Ontario and the eastern United States. Nest. — Fastened to tule stems or rushes 10 to 30 inches above thewater of a marsh, made of coarse marsh grasses, tules, reeds, and rushes,woven tog-ether and lined with finer grasses. Eggs: o to •;. from grayishto greenish white, profusely and evenly blotched and speckled withbrowns and grays. Food. —Small seeds, such as wild rice, and. in cultivated districts, occa-sionally corn, oats, and wheat; but mainly insects, especially grasshoppersand locusts, together with their eggs and larvte. From their breediuii: grounds in the sloughs and tule marshes theyellow-headed blackbirds scatter out and wander over the whole ofthe western plains country, appearing in flocks with grackles, red-wings, or cowbirds in the characteristic hordes of the fall migration,or in flocks by themselves in fields

handbook of birds of the western united states including the great plains great basin pacific slope and lower rio grande valley 1904 xanthocephalus xanthocephalus illustrations book illustrations ornithology birds zoological illustration natural history american museum of natural history high resolution images from internet archive canada british columbia

1904

American Museum of Natural History Library

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