As we draw near, some timid individual takes alarm, and instantly all are up, to alight again upon the fence or shrubbery where they clack and whistle, not so much by way of apprehension as thru sheer exuberance of nervous force. As we pass (we must not stop short, for they resent express attention) we note the droll white eyes of the males, as they twist and perk and chirp in friendly impudence; and the snuffy brown heads of the females with their soft hazel irides, as they give a motherly fluff of the feathers, or yawn with impatience over the interrupted meal. When we are fairly by, the most venturesome dives from his perch, and the rest follow by twos and tens, till the ground is again covered by a shifting, chattering band. Like all Blackbirds, the Brewers are gregarious; but they are somewhat more independent than most, flocks of one or two score being more frequent than those of a hundred. During migrations and in autumnal flocking they associate more or less with Redwings; but, altho they are devoted to the vicinity of water, they care nothing for the fastnesses of reed and rush, which are the delight of Redwing and Yellowhead. Their preference is for more open situations, so that they are most abundant upon the East-side. Here a typical breeding haunt is a strip of willows fringing a swamp; or, better still, a line of dark green thorn-bushes clinging to the bank of the rolling Columbia. Altho isolated nests may now and then be found, colonies are the rule; and I have found as high as forty nests in a single patch of greenery. There is room, of course, for individual choice of nesting sites, but the community choice is the more striking. Thus, one recalls the greasewood nesting, the rose-briar nesting, the thorn-bush nesting, where all the members of the colony conformed to the locally established rule in nest position. Mr. Bowles records the most remarkable instance of this: One season the nests of the South Tacoma colony were all placed in small bushes, the highest not over four feet from the ground; but in the season following the birds were all found nesting in cavities near the top of some giant fir stubs, none of them less than 150 feet from the ground. On the other hand, in the Usk nesting of 1906, on the placid banks of the Pend d’Oreille, one pair had recessed its nest in a stump at a height of eighteen feet, while three other pairs had sunk theirs into the ground at the base of bushes. In construction the nest of the Brewer Blackbird varies considerably, but at its best it is quite a handsome affair. Composed externally of twigs, weed-stalks, and grasses, its characteristic feature is an interior mould, or matrix, of dried cow-dung or mud, which gives form and stability to the whole. The lining almost invariably includes fine brown rootlets, but horsehair is also welcomed wherever available.