222 THE RUSTY GRAKLE. 



Rusty Grakle generally goes northward through this region 

 early in April, or even in March. Perhaps these have been 

 detained, or have loitered by the way, and are now advanc- 

 ing with a somewhat forced march along their swampy 

 thoroughfare. 



Spending the winter in the Southern and even in the 

 Middle States — in a few cases as far north as the lower 

 Connecticut Valley — the Rusty Grakle breeds from north- 

 ern New England, northward through Labrador, westward 

 to Alaska, and even as far north as 69°; Kansas, Nebraska 

 and Dakota being its western limit. Like the Red-wing, it 

 is an inhabitant of the swamp, and of low, wet regions, 

 its food being insects, berries and small moUusks. The 

 nests, which are very common in Nova Scotia, where this 

 bird is called the Black Robin, are generally found in spruce 

 bushes or larch groves, about wild meadows or in wet 

 places; so that the memory of my childhood days associates 

 the vigorous chuck and the metallic vibrations of the song 

 of this species with these elegant Conifo-ce. Mr. E. A. 

 Samuels found the nests " on the Magalloway River, in 

 Maine," placed in "the low alders overhanging the water." 

 Audubon sometimes found them " among the tall reeds of 

 the Cat-tails, or Typha, to which they were attached by 

 interweaving the leaves of the plant with the grasses and 

 strips of bark of which they were externally composed." 



The nest is bulky, firm and deep, composed outwardly of 

 small sticks, mosses and dried grasses, strongly cemented 

 together with mud, and well lined with fine, dried grasses. 

 The eggs, deposited early in May, in Nova Scotia, where I 

 used to regard five as the usual number, though four are 

 occasionally found, are about 1.03 x •'^'^ of a pale, grayish- 

 green, somewhat heavily marked with several shades of 

 brown and a dull lilac, and scratched with black. As in the 



