Psarocolius cyanocephalus, Wagler, Isis, 1829, 758. Scolecophagus cyanocephalus, Cabanis, Mus. Hein. 1851, 193.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 552.—Cass. P. A. N. S. 1866, 413.—Heerm. X, S, 53.—Cooper & Suckley, 209.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. I, 1870, 278. Scolecophagus mexicanus, Swainson, Anim. in Men. 2¼ cent. 1838, 302.—Bon. Conspectus, 1850, 423.—Newberry, Zoöl. Cal. and Or. Route; Rep. P. R. R. Surv. VI, IV, 1857, 86. Quiscalus breweri, Aud. Birds Am. VII, 1843, 345, pl. ccccxcii.
Sp. Char. Bill stout, quiscaline, the commissure scarcely sinuated; shorter than the head and the hind toe; the height nearly half length of culmen. Wing nearly an inch longer than the tail; the second quill longest; the first about equal to the third. Tail rounded and moderately graduated; the lateral feathers about .35 of an inch shorter. General color of male black, with lustrous green reflections everywhere except on the
head and neck, which are glossed with purplish-violet. Female much duller, of a light brownish anteriorly; a very faint superciliary stripe. Length about 10 inches; wing, 5.30; tail, 4.40.
Hab. High Central Plains to the Pacific; south to Mexico. Pembina, Minn.; S. Illinois (Wabash Co.; R. Ridgway); Matamoras and San Antonio, Texas (breeds; Dresser, Ibis, 1869, 493); Plateau of Mexico (very abundant, and resident; Sumichrast, M. B. S. I, 553).
Autumnal specimens do not exhibit the broad rusty edges of feathers seen in S. ferrugineus.
The females and immature males differ from the adult males in much the same points as S. ferrugineus, except that the “rusty” markings are less prominent and more grayish. The differences generally between the two species are very appreciable. Thus, in S. cyanocephalus, the bill, though of the same length, is much higher and broader at the base, as well as much less linear in its upper outline; the point, too, is less decurved. The size is every way larger. The purplish gloss, which in ferrugineus is found on most of the body except the wings and tail, is here confined to the head and neck, the rest of the body being of a richly lustrous and strongly marked green, more distinct than that on the wings and tail of ferrugineus. In one specimen only, from Santa Rosalia, Mexico, is there a trace of purple on some of the wing and tail feathers.
Habits. This species was first given as a bird of our fauna by Mr. Audubon, in the supplementary pages of the seventh volume of his Birds of America. He met with it on the prairies around Fort Union, at the junction of the Yellowstone and the Missouri Rivers, and in the extensive ravines in that neighborhood, in which were found a few dwarfish trees and tall rough weeds or grasses, along the margin of scanty rivulets. In these localities he met with small groups of seven or eight of these birds. They were in loose flocks, and moved in a silent manner, permitting an approach to within some fifteen or twenty paces, and uttering a call-note as his party stood watching their movements. Perceiving it to be a species new to him, he procured several specimens. He states that they did not evince the pertness so usual to birds of this family, but seemed rather as if dissatisfied with their abode. On the ground their gait was easy and brisk. He heard nothing from them of the nature of a song, only a single cluck, not unlike that of the Redwing, between which birds and the C. ferrugineus he was disposed to place this species.
Dr. Newberry found this Blackbird common both in California and in Oregon. He saw large flocks of them at Fort Vancouver, in the last of October. They were flying from field to field, and gathered into the large spruces about the fort, in the manner of other Blackbirds when on the point of migrating.
Mr. Allen found this Blackbird, though less an inhabitant of the marshes than the Yellow-headed, associating with them in destroying the farmers’
ripening corn, and only less destructive because less numerous. It appears to be an abundant species in all the settled portions of the western region, extending to the eastward as far as Wisconsin, and even to Southeastern Illinois, one specimen having been obtained in Wisconsin by Mr. Kumlien, and others in Wabash Co., Ill., by Mr. Ridgway.