Almost before we know it our friends, to the number of a dozen pairs or more, have taken up their residence in a cat-tail swamp—nowhere else, if you please, unless driven to it—and here, about the third week in April, a dozen baskets of matchless weave are swung, or lodged midway of the growing plants. Your distant approach is commented upon from the tops of bordering willows by _keyrings_ and other notes. At close range the lordly male, he of the brilliant epaulets and the proper military swagger, shakes out his fine clothes and says, _Kongqueree_, in a voice wherein anxiety is quite outweighed by vanity and proffered good-fellowship withal. But if you push roughly thru the outlying sedges, anxiety obtains the mastery. There is a hubbub in the marsh. Bustling, frowsy females appear and scold you roundly. The lazy gallants are all fathers now, and they join direful threats to courteous expostulations, as they flutter wildly around the intruder’s head. To the mischievous boy the chance of calling out these frantic attentions is very alluring, even when no harm is intended. I have said that the Red-wing prefers cat-tails for nesting; there is probably no undisturbed area of cat-tails in eastern Washington which does not harbor Columbian Red-wings; yet, even so, the cover does not suffice and they are impelled to occupy the extensive tulé beds which border the larger lakes. For the second nesting, which occurs in June, the Blackbirds are likely to try the willows, now covered with foliage; or, in default of these, may venture into any coarse vegetation which lines the swamp. [Illustration: _Taken near Spokane._ _Photo by F. S. Merrill._ NEST AND EGGS OF THE COLUMBIAN REDWING.] Four or five eggs are commonly laid and sets of six are very rare. On the 18th of May, 1896, I took a set of eight eggs, all believed to be the product of one female, from a nest in Okanogan County, and this set is now in the Oberlin College Museum. Of the economic value of the Red-wing there can be no question. The bird is chiefly insectivorous and destroys an immense amount of insect life, particularly in the larval state, injurious to vegetation. Its single fault is a weakness for young corn, but as corn is not a staple crop in Washington, this fault may be readily condoned in view of the bird’s valuable services to stockman and orchardist. No. 20. NORTHWESTERN RED-WING. A. O. U. No. 498f. Agelaius phœniceus caurinus Ridgway. Synonyms.—Red-winged Blackbird. Red-shouldered Blackbird. Marsh Blackbird. Swamp Blackbird. Description.—Similar to _A. p. neutralis_ but female much darker, heavily streaked with black below; in winter feather skirtings of female more extensively rusty. Measurements not essentially different. Recognition Marks.—As in preceding. Female darker and more heavily streaked than in _A. p. neutralis_.