Identifier: birdsofnewenglan00insamu (find matches)
Title: The birds of New England and adjacent states : containing descriptions of the birds of New England ... together with a history of their habitats... ; with illustrations of many species of the birds, and accurate figures of their eggs
Year: 1870 (1870s)
Authors: Samuels, Edward A. (Edward Augustus), 1836-1908
Subjects: Birds Birds Birds
Publisher: Boston : Noyes, Holmes and Co.
Contributing Library: University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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eeks the tene-ment of some other bird, usually a smaller species thanherself; and, watching an opportunity when the other birdhas left it, slie drops an egg in it, and leaves it to the tendermercies of the owner of the nest. The birds most oftenchosen for this purpose are the Vireos, Warblers, and Spar-rows : sometimes the Small Thrushes are thus imposed upon,and rarely the Wrens. Some birds build over the stranger egg a new nest. Ihave in my collection a nest of the Yellow Warbler thusdoubled, and another of the Goldfinch. Sometimes thenest is abandoned, particularly if the owner has no eggs ofher own; but usually the intruding egg is hatched, and theyoung bird attended with all the care given to the legitimateyoung. The eggs of this species are of a grayish-white,with fine spots of brown over the entire surface. Theirdimensions vary from .96 by .70 to .80 by .62 inch: somespecimens are marked with very minute reddish dots, whichare scattered over the entire surface; others have bold
Text Appearing After Image:
Red-wi.\cel« Bl^okimrD; Agelaius phceniceiis. Vieiliot. THE SWAMP BLACKBIRD. 341 dashes and confluent blotches of brown, thickest at thegreater end.^ By the last week in October, the young and old birdsassemble in large flocks, and leave for the South. AGELAIUS, ViEiLLOT. Agelaius, Vieillot, Analyse, 1816. (Type Oriolus Phceniceus, L.)First quill shorter than second; claws short; the outer lateral scarcely reachingthe base of the middle; culmen depressed at base, parting the frontal feathers;length equal to that of the head, shorter than tarsus; both mandibles of equal thick-ness and acute at tip, the edges much curved, the culmen, gonys, and commissurenearly straight or slightly sinuated; the length of bill about twice its height; tailmoderately rounded, or very slightly graduated; wings pointed, reaching to end oflower tail coverts; colors black, with red shoulders in North-American species. The nostrils are small, oblong, overhung by a membranous scale; the bill ishigher than broa

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