GENUS 16. GRACULA. GRAKLE.

SPECIES 1. GRACULA FERRUGINEA.

RUSTY GRAKLE.*

[Plate XXI.-Fig. 3.]

Black Oriole, Arct. Zool. p. 259, No. 144.-Rusty Oriole, Ibid. p. 260, No. 146.-New York Thrush, Ibid. p. 339, No. 205.— Hudsonian Thrush, Ibid. No. 234, female.-Labrador Thrush, Ibid. p. 340, No. 206.-PEALE's Museum, No. 5514.

HERE is a single species described by one of the most judicious naturalists of Great Britain no less than five different times! The greater part of these descriptions is copied by succeeding naturalists, whose synonymes it is unnecessary to repeat. So great is the uncertainty in judging, from a mere examination of their dried or stuffed skins, of the particular tribes of birds, many of which, for several years, are constantly varying in the colours of their plumage; and at different seasons, or different ages, assuming new and very different appearances. Even the size is by no means a safe criterion, the difference in this respect between the male and female of the same species (as in the one now before us) being sometimes very considerable.

This bird arrives in Pennsylvania, from the north, early in October; associates with the Red-wings, and Cow-pen Buntings, frequents corn fields, and places where grasshoppers are plenty; but Indian corn, at that season, seems to be its principal food. It is a very silent bird, having only now and then a single note, or chuck. We see them occasionally until about the middle of

*The Genus Gracula, as at present restricted, consists of only a single species; the others formerly included in it have been distributed in other genera. The two species described by Wilson belong to the genus Icterus as adopted by Temminck.

November, when they move off to the south. On the twelfth of January I overtook great numbers of these birds in the woods. near Petersburgh, Virginia, and continued to see occasional parties of them almost every day as I advanced southerly, particularly in South Carolina, around the rice plantations, where they were numerous; feeding about the hog-pens, and wherever Indian corn was to be procured. They also extend to a considerable distance westward. On the fifth of March, being on the banks of the Ohio, a few miles below the mouth of the Kentucky river, in the midst of a heavy snow-storm, a flock of these birds alighted near the door of the cabin where I had taken shelter, several of which I shot, and found their stomachs, as usual, crammed with Indian corn. Early in April they pass hastily through Pennsylvania, on their return to the north to breed.

From the accounts of persons who have resided near Hudson's Bay, it appears, that these birds arrive there in the beginning of June, as soon as the ground is thawed sufficiently for them to procure their food, which is said to be worms and maggots; sing with a fine note till the time of incubation, when they have only a chucking noise, till the young take their flight: at which time they resume their song. They build their nests in trees; about eight feet from the ground, forming them with moss and grass, and lay five eggs of a dark colour, spotted with black. It is added, they gather in great flocks, and retire southerly in September."

The male of this species, when in perfect plumage, is nine inches in length, and fourteen in extent; at a small distance appears wholly black; but on a near examination is of a glossy dark green; the irides of the eye are silvery, as in those of the Purple Grakle; the bill is black, nearly of the same form with that of the last mentioned species; the lower mandible a little rounded, with the edges turned inward, and the upper one furnished with a sharp bony process on the inside, exactly like that of the purple species. The tongue is slender, and lacerated at

*Arct. Zool. p. 259.

the tip; legs and feet black and strong, the hind claw the largest; the tail is slightly rounded. This is the colour of the male when of full age; but three-fourths of these birds which we meet with, have the whole plumage of the breast, head, neck, and back, tinctured with brown, every feather being skirted with ferruginous; over the eye is a light line of pale brown, below that one of black passing through the eye. This brownness gradually goes off towards spring, for almost all those I shot in the southern states were but slightly marked with ferruginous. The female is nearly an inch shorter; head, neck, and breast, almost wholly brown; a light line over the eye, lores black; belly and rump ash; upper and under tail-coverts skirted with brown; wings black, edged with rust colour; tail black, glossed with green; legs, feet and bill, as in the male.

These birds might easily be domesticated. Several that I had winged, and kept for some time, became in a few days quite familiar, seeming to be very easily reconciled to confinement.

SPECIES 2. GRACULA QUISCALA.

PURPLE GRAKLE.

[Plate XXI.-Fig. 4.]

La Fie de la Jamaique, BRISSON, II, 41.-BUFFON, 111, 97, Pl. Enl. 538.-Arct. Zool. p. 309, No. 154.—Gracula purpurea, the lesser Purple Jackdaw, or Crow Blackbird, BARTRAM, p. 291.— PEALE'S Museum, No. 1582.*

THIS noted depredator is well known to every farmer of the northern and middle states. About the twentieth of March the Purple Grakles visit Pennsylvania from the south, fly in loose flocks, frequent swamps and meadows, and follow in the furrows after the plough; their food at this season consisting of worms, grubs, and caterpillars, of which they destroy prodigious numbers, as if to recompense the husbandman before hand for the havock they intend to make among his crops of Indian corn. Towards evening they retire to the nearest cedars and pine trees to roost; making a continual chattering as they fly along. On the tallest of these trees they generally build their nests in company, about the beginning or middle of April; sometimes ten or fifteen nests being on the same tree. One of these nests, taken from a high pine tree, is now before me. It measures full five inches in diameter within, and four in depth; is composed outwardly of mud, mixed with long stalks and roots of a knotty kind of grass, and lined with fine bent and horse hair. The eggs are five, of a bluish olive colour, marked with large spots and straggling streaks of black and dark brown, also

* We add the following synonymes: Boal-tailed Grakle, LATH. Gen. Syn. 1, p. 460, No. 5.—Maize-thief, KALM's Travels.—Sturnus quiscala, Daudin, 2, p. 316.-Gracula barita, Journal Acad. Nat. Sciences of Philad, vol. 1, p. 254.Quiscala versicolor, BONAPARTE's Ornithology, vol. 1, p. 42, pl. V, female.

with others of a fainter tinge. They rarely produce more than one brood in a season.

The trees where these birds build are often at no great distance from the farm-house, and overlook the plantations. From thence they issue, in all directions, and with as much confidence, to make their daily depredations among the surrounding fields, as if the whole were intended for their use alone. Their chief attention, however, is directed to the Indian corn in all its progressive stages. As soon as the infant blade of this grain begins to make its appearance above ground, the Grakles hail the welcome signal with screams of peculiar satisfaction; and without waiting for a formal invitation from the proprietor, descend on the fields, and begin to pull up and regale themselves on the seed, scattering the green blades around. While thus eagerly employed, the vengeance of the gun sometimes overtakes them; but these disasters are soon forgotten, and those

who live to get away,

Return to steal, another day.'

About the beginning of August, when the young ears are in their milky state, they are attacked with redoubled eagerness by the Grakles and Red-wings, in formidable and combined bodies. They descend like a blackening, sweeping tempest, on the corn, dig off the external covering of twelve or fifteen coats of leaves, as dexterously as if done by the hand of man, and having laid bare the ear, leave little behind to the farmer but the cobs, and shrivelled skins that contained their favourite fare. I have seen fields of corn of many acres, where more than one half was thus ruined. Indeed the farmers in the immediate vicinity of the rivers Delaware and Schuylkill, generally allow one-fourth of this crop to the Blackbirds, among whom our Grakle comes in for his full share. During these depredations, the gun is making great havock among their numbers, which has no other effect on the survivors than to send them to another field, or to another part of the same field. This system of plunder and of retaliation continues until November, when to