MESQUITE BOAT-TAILED GRACKLE 353 



see it also about fresh-water ponds, or in the towns and on the high 

 prairie or chaparral lands if water of any kind is in the vicinity." 

 Courtship. — Mrs. Bailey (1902) gives the following account of 

 this grotesque performance: 



Seated on an oak top, where his humble spouse could see him to the best ad- 

 vantage, an old male would begin by spreading his wings and tail to their fullest 

 breadth and making a crackling "breaking brush" sound which he evidently 

 considered a striking prelude. This done he would quiver his wings frantically 

 and opening wide his bill emit a high falsetto squeal, quee-ee, quee-ee, quee-ee, 

 quee-ee, perhaps attuned to the feminine blackbird ear. But his coup d'ttat, which 

 should have wrung admiration from the most unappreciative mate, consisted in 

 striking an attitude, his long bill pointed as nearly straight to the sky as his neck 

 would permit. Poised in this way he would sit like a statute, with the most 

 ludicrous air of greatness. Incredible as it may appear, instead of standing 

 spellbound before him, his spouse, practical housewife that she was, whatever 

 her secret admiration may have been, through all his lordship's play calmly went 

 about gathering sticks. 



Dr. Arthur A. Allen (1944) describes it as follows: 



In the lone pine the grackles were executing their courtships, accompanied by 

 such sounds as shatter an adult's nerves, but delight children when you draw 

 your fingers over a toy balloon and let the air out at various speeds; first low 

 squeals and then high squeals, followed by a crashing sound as if the bird were 

 beating its wings on dry twigs. All this accompanied a display of plumage that 

 was equally ridiculous, for the bird first threw his head back on his shoulders and 

 inflated himself until he appeared twice his natural size, his feathers standing on 

 end and his enormous tail spreading. In the bright sun the brilliant iridescence 

 of otherwise black feathers shot out gleams of purple and green. Next he threw 

 his head forward and, as he collapsed, he rapidly fanned the air with his wings, 

 producing the crashing sound already mentioned. 



Nesting. — On the southern Texas coastal plain, from Matagorda 

 Bay to Brownsville, we found the mesquite grackle nesting in enormous 

 numbers in practically all of the heron colonies where there were 

 trees or shrubs; there were sometimes a score or more nests in a single 

 tree; nests were often built in the lower portions of the nests of Ward's 

 herons, some were in prickly pear cactus, yuccas, and even in long 

 grass. On May 9 and 10, 1923, we explored the heron colonies 

 around Karankawa Bay, near Port Lavaca; the largest of these, at 

 Wolf Point, was a densely populated colony of Louisiana, Ward's, and 

 black-crowned night herons and reddish egrets, a few black vultures 

 and, as I wrote in my notes at the time, "countless thousands of 

 great-tailed grackles." 



The willows, huisache, and other small trees and bushes were full 

 of the nests of the grackles; the dense colony seemed to be much 

 overcrowded. Many nests in the huisache trees were 10 or 12 feet 

 from the ground, but many others in the bushes were only from 3 to 

 6 feet up. The nests were rather bulky structures, made of dry and 



