uring April or May they lay from three
to five eggs of a bluish white color specked and spotted with brown.
Size 1.20 x .85.

[Illustration 315: Clarke's Nutcracker.]
[Illustration: Grayish blue.]
[Illustration: Bluish white.]
[Illustration: deco.]
[Illustration: right hand margin.]

Page 314

STARLINGS. Family STURNIDAE

493. STARLING. _Sturnus vulgaris._

Range.--A European species which has casually been taken in Greenland.
It was liberated a number of years ago in Central Park, New York City,
and has now become abundant there and is spreading slowly in all
directions.

They build their nests in all sorts of locations such as are used by the
English Sparrow, wherever they can find a sufficiently large crevice or
opening; less often they build their nests in trees, making them of
straw, twigs and trash. They lay from four to six pale bluish green
eggs; size 1.15 x .85. Two broods are reared in a season.

BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, ETC. Family ICTERIDAE

494. BOBOLINK. _Dolichonyx oryzivorus._

Range.--Eastern North America, breeding from New Jersey north to Nova
Scotia and Manitoba, and west to Utah and Nevada; winters in South
America.

This black and white bird is well known in the east, where his sweet,
wild music, often uttered on the wing, is much admired. He sings all day
long during May and June to his Sparrow-like mate, who is sitting on her
nest concealed in the meadow grass. They are quite sociable birds and
several pairs often nest in the same field, generally a damp meadow; the
nests are hollows in the ground, lined with grass and frequently with
the top slightly arched to conceal the eggs, which are grayish white,
clouded, spotted and blotched with brownish, gray and lilac; size .84 x
.62. They number from four to six and are laid in June.

495. COWBIRD. _Molothrus ater ater._

Range.--North America from the Atlantic to eastern California, and from
New Brunswick and Manitoba southward; winters from the southern half of
the United States southward.

[Illustration 316: Starling.]
[Illustration: Bluish green.]
[Illustration: Bobolink.]
[Illustration: Grayish white.]
[Illustration: left hand margin.]

Page 315

These uncivilized members of the bird world build no nests for
themselves, but slyly deposit their egg in the nest of some other bird
from the size of a Robin down, probably the greater number being in
Warblers and Sparrows nests; the eggs are hatched and the young cared
for b