220 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



call-note, not loud, and seemingly one of uneasiness and watchfuluess against 

 danger. Yet tliey were not shy, and ijeriuitted a close approach. They 

 remained but a day, and all were gone the following morning. On the day 

 after their depaiture, wr. found that (^uite a number of apples liad been 

 bitten into. We had no doubt as to tiie culprits, though no one saw them 

 in the act. 



Audubon's ol)servations relative to the Ch-ow Blackbird are chiefly made 

 witli reference to those seen in Louisiana, wliere this race is probably the only 

 one found. The only noticeable pecidiarity in his account of these birds is 

 his statement that the Blackbirds of that State nest in hollow trees, a man- 

 ner of breeding now known to be also occasional in the habits of the purpii- 

 reus. Tlie eggs of this form appear to exhibit apparently even greater \'aria- 

 tions 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 lias a dull gray ground, sjjaringly marked witli light 

 brown ; the measurement of this is l.l;> inches by .85. A tliird lias 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-lirown that the ground can nowhere 

 be traced. 



Mr. Gideon Lineecum, 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 situa- 

 tions four or five nests can be looked into at once. The}' 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 l)irds return in the spring to the same nesting-places. 

 They lay five eggs in a nest. 



In Southern Illinois, as Mr. Eidgway 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 Eiver, covered with tall 

 willows, Mr. Eidgway ibund over seventy nests at one time. These were 

 placeed indifferently on horizontal boughs, in forks, or in excavations, — 

 either natural or made by the large Woodpeckers {Hijlotomus), — nests in 

 all these situations being sometimes found in one tree. They prefer the 

 large elms, cottonwoods, and sycamores of the ri^■er-lJottoms as trees iov 

 nesting-places, but select rather tlunly wooded situations, as old clearings, 

 etc. In the vicinity of Calais, according to Mr. Boardman, they nest habit- 

 ually in hollow stubs in marshy borders of brooks or ponds. 



