THE RUSTY GRAKLE. 221 



THE RUSTY GRAKLE. 



On the first day of May, 1880, as I stood on an iron 

 bridge crossing a sluggish stream of Tonawanda Swamp, I 

 saw the Rusty Grakles {Scolecophagus ferrugineus) constantly 

 trooping by in immense numbers. They were moving in a 

 very leisurely manner, immense detachments constantly 

 alighting. The large tract of low land, covered with the 

 alder, the willow and the osier, seemed alive with them. 

 The sombre wave, thus constantly rolling on, must have 

 carried hundreds of thousands over this highway in a day. 

 Occasionally they would alight to feed in the low, wet fields 

 in the vicinity, making the earth black with their numbers. 

 Their notes, or what might be called their songs, were 

 almost deafening — resembling, indeed, the vocal perform- 

 ances of the Red-wings, but far less musical, being more of 

 a sharp, metallic clatter, interspersed with loud squealing, 

 and almost destitute of the liquid, warbling notes so pecul- 

 iar to that species. On being alarmed, either in the fields 

 or in the bushes, these Grakles would rise in a dense, black 

 cloud, and with a rumbling sound like that of distant 

 thunder. Their flight, which ordinarily is not very high, is 

 straightforward, with a steady beat of the wings, after the 

 manner of our Blackbirds in general. To one who has 

 merely met these birds in their rusty coats, as they visit the 

 fields in moderate flocks on their way south in October or 

 perhaps as early as the last of September, or as late as the 

 first of November, they would scarcely be recognizable on 

 these gala-days of their northward migration, so almost 

 completely have they doffed the rust-color; the male being 

 of an elegant glossy black, with the merest touch here and 

 there of the rusty fringe; and even the female being of a fine 

 brown or slaty-black, and having but a moderate garniture 

 of this distinguishable edging on her nuptial plumage. The 



