PURPLE GRACKLE 381 



Flocks as large as a couple of hundred birds come into the oak-wooded 

 suburbs of Baltimore in late September and October, and feed both in 

 the trees and on the ground beneath. The grackles, incidentally, 

 do not open the acorns as blue jays do, by holding them down with 

 their feet and hammering them with their bills; they grip them back 

 in the angle of their mandibles and crack them by direct pressure." 



Clarence Cottam (1943) observed an unusual feeding habit of 

 grackles and crows at the outlet of a reservoir where — 



About 12,000 cubic feet of water per second was passing through the electric 

 turbines, "boiling up" to form the headwater of the Cooper River. Apparently 

 the turbines were cutting up or otherwise killing large numbers of gizzard shad 

 and other small fishes. These, brought to the surface by the churning water, 

 attracted Ring-billed, Herring, Laughing, and Bonaparte's Gulls, as well as 

 crows, Purple Grackles, and even a solitary Red-wing. * * * The grackles and 

 crows fed over the turbulent water, picking up morsels of food with the skill and 

 dexterity of the typical water birds. The feet and even the breast feathers of 

 many of the crows and grackles were seen to touch the surface of the water 

 momentarily as the birds hovered over this (for them) uncharacteristic feeding 

 place. * * * Purple Grackles * * * use a wide variety of foods, and we have 

 occasionally observed them feeding in shallow water on stranded insects and even 

 small fishes. To see several dozens of these birds feeding in deep and turbulent 

 water after the manner of gulls and terns, however, was indeed a surprise. 



Economic status. — The grackle's reputation among farmers is 

 almost as black as its plumage, for its faults, and it has plenty, are 

 more conspicuous than its good deeds. Nor is it any more popular 

 among its bird neighbors, as can be seen by the hostility they show 

 toward it, for many a robin's or other small bird's nest has been robbed 

 of its eggs or callow young to satisfy the appetites of young grackles. 

 Analysis of stomach contents does not show any large percentage of 

 such food, but it must be remembered that the yolks of eggs and the 

 soft parts of small young are quickly digested and thus not easily 

 detected; and the egg shells are not always swallowed. 



The grackles are condemned by farmers on account of the con- 

 siderable damage done by them to the grain crops during the planting 

 season and until after harvesting has been completed. They are 

 accused of pulling up the sprouting corn and wheat in the spring, 

 but much of this is done to obtain the cutworms that are attacking the 

 seedlings. Warren (1890) says on this point: "Some four years ago 

 I was visiting a friend who had thirty odd acres of corn (maize) 

 planted. Quite a number of 'blackies/ as he styled them, were plying 

 themselves with great activity about the growing cereal. We shot 

 thirty-one of these birds feeding in the cornfield. Of this number 

 nineteen showed only cut worms in their stomachs. The number of 

 cut worms in each, of course, varied, but as many as twenty-two 

 were taken from one stomach. In seven some corn was found, in 



