BOAT-TAILED GRACKLE 349 



may be sonorous like the male's, but not so loud. Rarely she folds 

 her tail feathers together in the manner of the male, but not com- 

 pletely. In sustained flights on a horizontal or ascending course, both 

 sexes move with perfectly regular and rapid wing beats, neither folding 

 their wings intermittently nor spreading them for gliding. On the 

 ground, the grackles walk rather than hop. 



Although I never witnessed a serious dispute between the male 

 boat-tailed grackles in the colony at "Alsacia," in other regions these 

 birds may be more pugnacious. While traveling by rail through 

 southern Mexico, I saw from the train window two male grackles 

 fighting in good earnest. They clinched and rolled on the ground, 

 continuing their battle as long as I could keep them in view. 



Voice. — The range and power of the male grackle's voice are 

 wonderful — he lacks only a set song. At one extreme, he utters a 

 little tinkling note, rapidly repeated and very pretty, at the other, 

 his calls are so loud that they are best heard at a distance. If one may 

 say that a bird with so varied a language has one call which is most 

 characteristic, that call is a single, long-drawn utterance, something 

 between a squeak and a whistle, which rises through the scale. Then 

 there is a resonant tlick tlick tlick, delivered while the bird is either in 

 flight or at rest, and a spirited, rollicking tlick-a-lick tlick-a-lick which 

 seems the outpouring of rare good spirits. There is also a rolling or 

 yodeling call, very vigorous, and quite in contrast with the lazy, 

 screeching note, like the slow swinging of a gate with rusty hinges, 

 which is also a part of his varied vocabulary. Sometimes while perch- 

 ing the male grackle puffs himself up, swelling out all his feathers, 

 and half opening his bill, slowly expells the air with a low, undulatory 

 sound, such as can be made by whistling through the teeth. 



As musicians, the grackles display a good deal of originality. They 

 often invent new calls, and when they hit upon one which takes their 

 fancy, repeat it over and over again. One bird fell in love with a 

 pretty phrase, which sounded like wheet-tock, and uttered it constantly 

 for a week or more, until at last, like a popular song, it grew stale and 

 was forgotten. Another clarinero was much taken with a buglelike 

 call that went ta-dee ta-dee ta-dee and was really very martial and 

 stirring, especially when heard at a little distance, for it had great 

 carrying power. After delivering a call, the grackles frequently perch 

 with their long, sharp, black bills pointing straight upward, a pose 

 which displays to good advantage the sleek glossiness of their purple 

 necks. This position is also assumed on other occasions, and some- 

 times two splendid birds, perching side by side on a coconut frond, 

 point upward at the same time and hold the pose for a good fraction of 

 a minute, looking very self-conscious. The females, too, sometimes 



