A History of North American Birds, Land Birds. Volume 2

The Crow Blackbirds visit Massachusetts early in March and remain until the latter part of September, those that are summer residents generally departing before October. They are not abundant in the eastern part of the State, and breed in small communities or by solitary pairs.

In the Central States, especially in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, they are much more abundant, and render themselves conspicuous and dreaded by the farmers through the extent of their depredations on the crops. The evil deeds of all birds are ever much more noticed and dwelt upon than their beneficial acts. So it is, to an eminent degree, with the Crow Blackbird. Very few seem aware of the vast amount of benefit it confers on the farmer, but all know full well—and are bitterly prejudiced by the knowledge—the extent of the damages this bird causes.

They return to Pennsylvania about the middle of March, in large, loose flocks, at that time frequenting the meadows and ploughed fields, and their food then consists almost wholly of grubs, worms, etc., of which they destroy prodigious numbers. In view of these services, and notwithstanding the havoc they commit on the crops of Indian corn, Wilson states that he should hesitate whether to consider these birds most as friends or as enemies, as they are particularly destructive to almost all the noxious worms, grubs, and caterpillars that infest the farmer’s fields, which, were they to be allowed to multiply unmolested, would soon consume nine tenths of all the productions of his labor, and desolate the country with the miseries of famine.

The depredations committed by these birds are almost wholly upon Indian corn, at different stages. As soon as its blades appear above the ground, after it has been planted, these birds descend upon the fields, pull up the tender plant, and devour the seeds, scattering the green blades around. It is of little use to attempt to drive them away with the gun. They only fly from one part of the field to another. And again, as soon as the tender corn has formed, these flocks, now replenished by the young of the year, once more swarm in the cornfields, tear off the husks, and devour the tender grains. Wilson has seen fields of corn in which more than half the corn was thus ruined.

These birds winter in immense numbers in the lower parts of Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, sometimes forming one congregated multitude of several hundred thousands. On one occasion Wilson met, on the banks of the Roanoke, on the 20th of January, one of these prodigious armies of Crow Blackbirds. They rose, he states, from the surrounding fields with a noise like thunder, and, descending on the length of the road before him, they covered it and the fences completely with black. When they again rose, and after a few evolutions descended on the skirts of the high timbered woods, they produced a most singular and striking effect. Whole trees, for a considerable extent, from the top to the lowest branches, seemed as if hung with mourning. Their notes and screaming, he adds, seemed all the while like the distant sounds of a great cataract, but in a more musical cadence.

A writer in the American Naturalist (II. 326), residing in Newark, N. Y., notes the advent of a large number of these birds to his village. Two built their nest inside the spire of a church. Another pair took possession of a martin-house in the narrator’s garden, forcibly expelling the rightful owners. These same birds also attempted to plunder the newly constructed nests of the Robins of their materials. They were, however, successfully resisted, the Robins driving the Blackbirds away in all cases of contest.

The Crow Blackbird nests in various situations, sometimes in low bushes, more frequently in trees, and at various heights. A pair, for several years, had their nest on the top of a high fir-tree, some sixty feet from the ground, standing a few feet from my front door. Though narrowly watched by unfriendly eyes, no one could detect them in any mischief. Not a spear of corn was molested, and their food was exclusively insects, for which they diligently searched, turning over chips, pieces of wood, and loose stones. Their nests are large, coarsely but strongly made of twigs and dry plants, interwoven with strong stems of grasses. When the Fish Hawks build in their neighborhood, Wilson states that it is a frequent occurrence for the Grakles to place their nests in the interstices of those of the former. Sometimes several pairs make use of the same Hawk’s nest at the same time, living in singular amity with its owner. Mr. Audubon speaks of finding these birds generally breeding in the hollows of trees. I have never met with their nests in these situations, but Mr. William Brewster says he has found them nesting in this manner in the northern part of Maine. Both, however, probably refer to the var. æneus.

The eggs of the Grakle exhibit great variations in their ground-color, varying from a light greenish-white to a deep rusty-brown. The former is the more common color. The eggs are marked with large dashes and broad, irregular streaks of black and dark brown, often presenting a singular grotesqueness in their shapes. Eggs with a deep brown ground are usually marked chiefly about the larger end with confluent, cloudy blotches of deeper shades of the same. The eggs measure 1.25 inches by .90.

Var. æneus, Ridgway

BRONZED GRAKLE

Quiscalus versicolor, Aud. Orn. Biog. pl. vii; Birds Am. IV pl. ccxxi (figure, but not description).—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 555 (western specimens).—Samuels, 352. Quiscalus æneus, Ridgway, Pr. Phil. Acad., June, 1869. 134.

Var. æneus.

Sp. Char. Length, 12.50 to 13.50; wing, 6.00; tail, 6.00; culmen, 1.26; tarsus, 1.32. Third and fourth quills longest and equal; first shorter than fifth; projection of primaries beyond secondaries, 1.28; graduation of tail, 1.48.

Metallic tints rich, deep, and uniform. Head and neck all round rich silky steel-blue, this strictly confined to these portions, and abruptly defined behind, varying in shade from an intense Prussian blue to brassy-greenish, the latter tint always, when present, most apparent on the neck, the head always more violaceous; lores velvety-black. Entire body, above and below, uniform continuous metallic brassy-olive, varying to burnished golden olivaceous-bronze, becoming gradually uniform metallic purplish or reddish violet on wings and tail, the last more purplish; primaries violet-black; bill, tarsi, and toes pure black; iris sulphur-yellow.

Hab. Mississippi region of United States, east to Alleghany Mountains, west to Fort Bridger; Saskatchewan Region, Hudson’s Bay Territory; Labrador? and Maine (52,382, Calais, Me., G. A. Boardman). More or less abundant in all eastern States north of New Jersey.

This species may be readily distinguished from the Q. purpureus by the color alone, independently of the differences of proportions.

The impression received from a casual notice of a specimen of the Q. purpureus is that of a uniformly glossy black bird, the metallic tints being much broken or irregularly distributed, being frequently, or generally, arranged in successive bands on the feathers over the whole body, producing a peculiar iridescent effect. In the Q. æneus nothing of this character is seen; for, among a very large series of western specimens, not one has the body other than continuous bronze, the head and neck alone being green or blue, and this sharply and abruptly defined against the very different tint of the other portions. These colors, of course, have their extremes of variation, but the change is only in the shade of the metallic tints, the precise pattern being strictly retained. In the present species the colors are more vivid and silky than in the eastern, and the bird is, in fact, a much handsomer one. (Ridgway.)

Just after moulting, the plumage is unusually brilliant, the metallic tints being much more vivid.

Habits. The Bronzed Blackbird has been so recently separated from the purpureus that we cannot give, with exactness or certainty, the area over which it is distributed. It is supposed to occupy the country west of the Alleghanies as far to the southwest as the Rio Grande and Fort Bridger, extending to the Missouri plains on the northwest, to the Saskatchewan in the north, and to Maine and Nova Scotia on the northeast. Subsequent explorations may somewhat modify this supposed area of distribution. It is at least known that this form occurs in Texas, in all the States immediately west of the Alleghanies, and in the New England States, as well as the vicinity of New York City.

In regard to its habits, as differing from those of purpureus, we are without any observations sufficiently distinctive to be of value. It reaches Calais about the first of April, and is a common summer visitant.

In the fall of 1869, about the 10th of October, several weeks after the Quiscali which had been spending the summer with us had disappeared, an unusually large number of these birds, in the bronzed plumage, made their appearance in the place; they seemed to come all together, but kept in smaller companies. One of these flocks spent the day, which was lowering and unpleasant, but not rainy, in my orchard. They kept closely to the ground, and seemed to be busily engaged in searching for insects. They had a single call-note, not loud, and seemingly one of uneasiness and watchfulness against danger. Yet they were not shy, and permitted a close approach. They remained but a day, and all were gone the following morning. On the day after their departure, we found that quite a number of apples had been bitten into. We had no doubt as to the culprits, though no one saw them in the act.

Audubon’s observations relative to the Crow Blackbird are chiefly made with reference to those seen in Louisiana, where this race is probably the only one found. The only noticeable peculiarity in his account of these birds is his statement that the Blackbirds of that State nest in hollow trees, a manner of breeding now known to be also occasional in the habits of the purpureus. The eggs of this form appear to exhibit apparently even greater variations than do those of the purpureus. One egg, measuring 1.10 inches by .85, has a bright bluish-green ground, plashed and spotted with deep brown markings. Another has a dull gray ground, sparingly marked with light brown; the measurement of this is 1.13 inches by .85. A third has a greenish-white ground, so profusely spotted with a russet-brown that the ground-color is hardly perceptible. It is larger and more nearly spherical, measuring 1.16 inches by .90. A fourth is so entirely covered with blotches, dots, and cloudings of dark cinnamon-brown that the ground can nowhere be traced.

Mr. Gideon Lincecum, of Long Point, Texas, writes, in regard to this species, that, in his neighborhood, they nest in rookeries, often on a large live oak. They build their nests on the top of large limbs. In favorable situations four or five nests can be looked into at once. They are at this time full of song, though never very melodious. The people of Texas shoot them, believing them to be injurious to their crops; but instead of being an injury they are an advantage, they destroy so many worms, grasshoppers, caterpillars, etc. They are migratory, and very gregarious. They all leave Texas in the winter, and the same birds return in the spring to the same nesting-places. They lay five eggs in a nest.

In Southern Illinois, as Mr. Ridgway informs me, these birds are resident throughout the year, though rather rare during the winter months. They breed in the greatest abundance, and are very gregarious in the breeding-season. On a single small island in the Wabash River, covered with tall willows, Mr. Ridgway found over seventy nests at one time. These were placed indifferently on horizontal boughs, in forks, or in excavations,—either natural or made by the large Woodpeckers (Hylotomus),—nests in all these situations being sometimes found in one tree. They prefer the large elms, cottonwoods, and sycamores of the river-bottoms as trees for nesting-places, but select rather thinly wooded situations, as old clearings, etc. In the vicinity of Calais, according to Mr. Boardman, they nest habitually in hollow stubs in marshy borders of brooks or ponds.

Var. aglæus, Baird

FLORIDA GRAKLE

Quiscalus baritus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 556, pl. xxxii (not of Linn.). Quiscalus aglæus, Baird, Am. Jour. Sci. 1866, 84.—Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 44.—Ridgway, Pr. A. N. S. 1869, 135. Q. purpureus, Allen, B. E. Fla. 291.

Var. aglæus.

Sp. Char. Length, 10.60; wing, 5.20; tail, 5.12; culmen, 1.40; tarsus, 1.40. Second and third quills equal and longest; first shorter than fourth; projection of primaries beyond secondaries, 1.12; graduation of tail, 1.00.

Bill very slender and elongated, the tip of upper mandible abruptly decurved; commissure very regular.

Metallic tints very dark. Head and neck all round well defined violaceous steel-blue, the head most bluish, the neck more purplish and with a bronzy cast in front; body uniform soft, dull, bronzy greenish-black, scarcely lustrous; wings, upper tail-coverts, and tail blackish steel-blue, the wing-coverts tipped with vivid violet-bronze; belly and crissum glossed with blue.

Hab. South Florida.

This race is quite well marked, though it grades insensibly into the var. purpureus. It differs from both that and æneus in much smaller size, with more slender and more decurved bill.

The arrangement of the colors is much as in the larger western species, while the tints are most like those of the eastern. All the colors are, however, darker, but at the same time softer than in either of the others.

In form this species approaches nearest the western, agreeing with it in the primaries, slender bill, and more graduated tail, and, indeed, its relations in every respect appear to be with this rather than the eastern.

This race was first described from specimens collected at Key Biscayne by Mr. Wurdemann, in April, 1857, and in 1858, and is the smallest of the genus within our limits. The wing and tail each are about an inch shorter than in the other varieties of purpureus. The bill, however, is much longer and more slender, and the tip considerably more produced and decurved. The feet are stouter and much coarser, the pads of the toes very scabrous, as if to assist in holding slippery substances, a feature scarcely seen in purpureus.⁴⁹

Habits. This race or species seems to be confined exclusively to the peninsula of Florida. We have no notes as to any of its peculiarities, nor do we know that it exhibits any differences of manners or habits from those of its more northern relatives.

Of its eggs I have seen but few specimens. These do not exhibit much variation. The ground-color shades from a light drab to one with a greenish tinge. They average 1.17 inches in length by .85 in breadth, are more oblong in shape, and are very strikingly marked with characters in black and dark brown, resembling Arabic and Turkish letters.

Quiscalus major, Vieill

BOAT-TAILED GRAKLE; JACKDAW

Gracula barita, Wilson, Index Am. Orn. VI, 1812 (not of Linnæus). Gracula quiscala, Ord. J. A. N. Sc. I, 1818, 253 (not of Linnæus). Quiscalus major, Vieillot, Nouv. Dict. XXVIII, 1819, 487.—Bon. Am. Orn. I, 1825, 35, pl. iv.—Ib. List, 1838.—Ib. Consp. 1850, 424.—Aud. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 504; V, 1838, 480, pl. clxxxvii, Ib. Syn. 1839, 146.—Ib. Birds Am. IV, 1842, 52, pl. ccxx.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 555.—Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. 1867, 409.—Allen, B. E. Fla. 295.—Coues, Ibis, N. S. IV, No. 23, 1870, 367 (Biography). Chalcophanes major, “Temm.” Cab. Mus. Hein. 1851, 196.

Sp. Char. (1,563.) Form rather lengthened, but robust; bill strong, about the length of head; wing rather long, second and third quills usually longest, though the first four quills are frequently nearly equal; tail long, graduated; lateral feathers about 2.50 inches shorter than the central; legs and feet strong.

Adult male. Black; head and neck with a fine purple lustre, rather abruptly defined on the lower part of the neck behind, and succeeded by a fine green lustre which passes into a purple or steel-blue on the lower back and upper tail-coverts. On the under parts the purple lustre of the head and neck passes more gradually into green on the abdomen; under tail-coverts usually purplish-blue, frequently plain black. Smaller wing-coverts with green lustre; larger coverts greenish-bronze; quills frequently plain black, with a greenish or bronzed edging and slight lustre. Tail usually with a slight bluish or greenish lustre, frequently plain black. Bill and feet black. Iris yellow. Total length about 15 inches; wing, 7.00; tail, 6.50 to 7.00.

PLATE XXXVI.

1. Quiscalus macrourus. ♂ Texas, 3948.

2. Quiscalus macrourus. ♀ Texas, 3949.

3. Quiscalus major. ♀ S. Car., 39005.

4. Quiscalus major. ♂ S. Car., 39003.

Adult female. Smaller. Upper parts dark brown, lighter on the head and neck behind; darker and nearly a dull black on the lower part of the back and upper tail-coverts; under parts lighter, dull yellowish-brown; tibiæ and under tail-coverts darker; wings and tail dull brownish-black; upper parts frequently with a slight greenish lustre. Total length, about 12.50; wing, 5.50 to 6.00; tail, 5.50. (Cassin.)

Hab. Coast region of South Atlantic and Gulf States of North America. Galveston and Houston, Texas (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 494).

Habits. The Boat-tailed Grakle, or Jackdaw, of the Southern States, is found in all the maritime portions of the States that border both on the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, from North Carolina to Rio Grande. In Western Texas it does not seem to be abundant. Lieutenant Couch met with only a single specimen at Brownsville, in company with Q. macrurus. Mr. Dresser, when at Houston and at Galveston in May and June, 1864, noticed several of these birds. Mr. Salvin mentions finding them as far south as the Keys of the Belize coast.

We learn from the observations of Mr. Audubon that this species is more particularly attached to the maritime portions of the country. It rarely goes farther inland than forty or fifty miles, following the marshy banks of the larger streams. It occurs in great abundance in the lower portions of Louisiana, though not found so high up the Mississippi as Natchez. It also abounds in the Sea Islands on the coast of the Carolinas, and in the lowlands of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

Dr. Coues states that this species hardly occurs in any abundance north of the Carolinas, and that it is restricted to a narrow belt along the coast of the ocean and gulf, from North Carolina throughout our entire shore to Mexico. He supposed it to stop there, and to be replaced by the macrurus. Though the larger proportion of these birds pass beyond our southern boundaries to spend the winter, a few, chiefly old males, are resident in North Carolina throughout the year. In the spring the females are the first to appear. Just before the mating has taken place, the flocks of these birds are said to execute sudden and unaccountable evolutions, as if guided by some single commanding spirit; now hovering uncertain, then dashing impulsive, now veering in an instant, and at last taking a long, steady flight towards some distant point. During this period, Dr. Coues further informs us, their voices crack, and they utter a curious medley of notes from bass to falsetto, a jingling, unmusical jargon that is indescribable.

The laying-season is said to be at its height during the latter part of April. He found in no instance more than six eggs in a nest, nor less than three. He thinks that they have two, and perhaps three, broods in a season, as he found it not uncommon to meet with newly fledged birds in September.

These birds are eminently gregarious at all seasons of the year, and at certain seasons assemble in large flocks. They are omnivorous, eating both insects and grain, and are alternately benefactors and plunderers of the planters. In the early season they seek their food among the large salt marshes of the seaboard, and along the muddy banks of creeks and rivers. They do great damage to the rice plantations, both when the grain is in the soft state and afterwards when the ripened grain is stacked. They also feed very largely upon the small crabs called fiddlers, so common in all the mud flats, earthworms, various insects, shrimps, and other aquatic forms of the like character.

A few of these birds are resident throughout the year, though the greater part retire farther south during a portion of the winter. They return in February, in full plumage, when they mate. They resort, by pairs and in companies, to certain favorite breeding-places, where they begin to construct their nests. They do not, however, even in Florida, begin to breed before April. They build a large and clumsy nest, made of very coarse and miscellaneous materials, chiefly sticks and fragments of dry weeds, sedges, and strips of bark, lined with finer stems, fibrous roots, and grasses, and have from three to five eggs.

It is a very singular but well-established characteristic of this species, that no sooner is their nest completed and incubation commenced than the male birds all desert their mates, and, joining one another in flocks, keep apart from the females, feeding by themselves, until they are joined by the young birds and their mothers in the fall.

These facts and this trait of character in this species have been fully confirmed by the observations of Dr. Bachman of Charleston. In 1832 he visited a breeding-locality of these birds. On a single Smilax bush he found more than thirty nests of the Grakles, from three to five feet apart, some of them not more than fifteen inches above the water, and only females were seen about the nests, no males making their appearance. Dr. Bachman also visited colonies of these nests placed upon live-oak trees thirty or forty feet from the ground, and carefully watched the manners of the old birds, but has never found any males in the vicinity of their nests after the eggs had been laid. They always keep at a distance, feeding in flocks in the marshes, leaving the females to take charge of their nests and young. They have but one brood in a season.

As these birds fly, in loose flocks, they continually utter a peculiar cry, which Mr. Audubon states resembles or may be represented by kirrick, crick, crick. Their usual notes are harsh, resembling loud, shrill whistles, and are frequently accompanied with their ordinary cry of crick-crick-cree. In the love-season these notes are said to be more pleasing, and are changed into sounds which Audubon states resemble tirit, tirit, titiri-titiri-titirēē, rising from low to high with great regularity and emphasis. The cry of the young bird, when just able to fly, he compares to the whistling cry of some kind of frogs.

The males are charged by Mr. Audubon with attacking birds of other species, driving them from their nests and sucking their eggs.

Dr. Bryant, who found this species the most common bird in the neighborhood of Lake Monroe, adds that it could be seen at all times running along the edge of the water, almost in the manner of a Sandpiper. They were breeding by hundreds in the reeds near the inlet to the lake. On the 6th of April some of the birds had not commenced laying, though the majority had hatched, and the young of others were almost fledged.

The eggs of this species measure 1.25 inches in length by .92 in breadth. Their ground-color is usually a brownish-drab, in some tinged with olive, in others with green. Over this are distributed various markings, in lines, zigzags, and irregular blotches of brown and black.

Quiscalus major, var. macrurus, Sw

GREAT-TAILED GRAKLE

Quiscalus macrourus, Swainson, Anim. in Menag. 2¼ centen. 1838, 299, fig. 51, a.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, pl. lviii.—Ib. Mex. B. II, Birds, 20, pl. xx.—Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. 1867, 410. Chalcophanes macrurus, Cab. Mus. Hein. 1851, 196.

Sp. Char. (The largest species of this genus.) Form lengthened but robust, bill strong, longer than the head; wing long, third quill usually longest; tail long, graduated, outer feathers three to five inches shorter than those in the middle; legs and feet strong.

Adult male. Black; head, neck, back, and entire under parts with a fine bluish-purple lustre; lower part of back and the upper tail-coverts, and also the abdomen and under tail-coverts, frequently with green lustre, though in specimens apparently not fully adult those parts are sometimes bluish-brown, inclining to dark steel-blue. Wings and tail with a slight purplish lustre, smaller coverts with bluish-green, and larger coverts with greenish-bronze lustre. Bill and feet black. Iris yellow. Total length, 17.50 to 20.00; wing, about 8.00; tail, 8.00 to 10.50.

Female. Smaller, and generally resembling that of Q. major, but rather darker colored above. Entire upper parts dark brown, nearly black, and with a green lustre on the back; wings and tail dull brownish-black. Under parts light, dull yellowish-brown; paler on the throat, and with a trace of a narrow dark line from each side of the lower mandible. Tibiæ and under tail-coverts dark brown. Total length about 13.00; wing, 6.00; tail, 6.50. (Cassin.)

Hab. Eastern Texas to Panama and Carthagena. Cordova (Scl. 1856, 300); Guatemala (Scl. Ibis. I, 20, eggs); Honduras (Scl. II, 112); Carthagena, N. 9 (Cass. R. A. S., 1860, 138); Costa Rica (Caban. Journ. IX, 1861, 82; Lawr. IV, 104); Nicaragua (Lawr. N. Y. Lyc. VIII, 181); Rio Grande of Texas (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 493, breeds); Vera Cruz (from hot to alpine regions; resident. Sumichrast, M. B. S. I, 553).

Habits. The Great-tailed or Central American Grakle is an abundant species throughout Mexico and Central America, and probably extends to some distance into South America. In Vera Cruz, Sumichrast states it to be one of the few birds that are found in nearly equal abundance throughout the three regions, hot, temperate, and alpine, into which that department is physically divided. It is abundant everywhere throughout that State, and also nests there. In the neighborhood of Cordova and Orizaba it lives in large communities, a single tree being often loaded with the nests.

On the Rio Grande it extends into Texas, and thus qualifies itself for a place within our fauna. A few specimens were procured at Eagle Pass and elsewhere by the Mexican Boundary Survey party. It is more abundant on the western banks of the Rio Grande, especially at Matamoras. Among the MS. notes left by Dr. Kennerly is a part of the memoranda of the late Dr. Berlandier of that place. Under the name of Pica elegans the latter refers to what is evidently this species. He describes it as found in all parts of the Republic of Mexico, where it is known as Uraca, Pajaro negro, and, in Acapulco, Papate. It is found, he adds, abundantly throughout the State of Tamaulipas. It lives upon grain, especially corn, devouring the planted seeds and destroying the crops. It builds its nest in April, laying its eggs in the same month, and the young birds are hatched out by the beginning of May. The nests are large, the edges high, and the cavity correspondingly deep. They are constructed of dry plants and small bits of cloth, which the birds find about the settlements, and the bottom of the nest is plastered with clay, which gives it great firmness. This is covered with grasses and pieces of dry weeds. The eggs are described as large, of a pale leaden-gray or a rusty color, over which are black marks, stripes, lines, and spots without order or regularity. They are generally four in number. The nests are built on the tops of the highest trees, usually the willows or mesquites.

Mr. G. C. Taylor, in his notes on the birds of Honduras, states that he found this Blackbird common, and always to be met with about the villages. It appeared to be polygamous, the males being generally attended by several females. A fine male bird, with his accompanying females, frequented the court-yard of the Railroad House at Comayagua, where Mr. Taylor was staying. They generally sat on the roof of the house, or among the upper branches of some orange-trees that grew in the yard. They had a very peculiar cry, not unlike the noise produced by the sharpening of a saw, but more prolonged.

Mr. Salvin found the bird very abundant in Central America. In one of his papers relative to the birds of that region, he states that this species, in Guatemala, plays the part of the European House Sparrow. It seeks the abode of man, as does that familiar bird, and is generally found frequenting larger towns as well as villages. Stables are its favorite places of resort, where it scratches for its food among the ordure of the horses. It will even perch on the backs of these animals and rid them of their ticks, occasionally picking up stray grains of corn from their mangers. At Duenas he found it breeding in large societies, usually selecting the willows that grow near the lake and the reeds on the banks for its nest. The breeding season extends over some length of time. In May, young birds and fresh eggs may be found in nests in the same trees. On the coast, young birds, nearly capable of flying, were seen in the early part of March. Mr. Salvin adds that the nests are usually made of grass, and placed among upright branches, the grass being intwined around each twig, to support the structure. The eggs in that region were seldom found to exceed three in number.

Mr. Dresser found the Long-tailed Grakles very common at Matamoras, where they frequented the streets and yards with no signs of fear. They were breeding there in great quantities, building a heavy nest of sticks, lined with roots and grass. They were fond of building in company, and in the yard of the hotel he counted seven nests in one tree. At Eagle Pass, and as far east as the Nueces River, he found them not uncommon, but noticed none farther in the interior of Texas. Their usual note is a loud and not unmelodious whistle. They have also a very peculiar guttural note, which he compares to the sound caused by drawing a stick sharply across the quills of a dried goose-wing.