376 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



andflower and spread his tail, at the same time giving voice to his 

 unmusical notes. The other male went through the same motions at 

 intervals, alternating with the first one. Eventually they separated 

 and flew away in different directions. Apparently, it was a com- 

 petitive display for the benefit of some hidden female, of which there 

 were several in the yard. 



Mating is evidently earlier at Cape May, N. J., for Witmer Stone 

 (1937) writes: 



As early as March 13, many of the Grackles are flying in pairs, the male just 

 behind the female and at a slightly lower level. They are noisy, too, about the 

 nest trees and there is a constant chorus of harsh alarm calls; chuck; chuck; chuck; 

 like the sound produced by drawing the side of the tongue away from the teeth, 

 interspersed with an occasional long-drawn, seeek, these calls being uttered by 

 birds on the wing as well as those that are perching. Then at intervals from a 

 perching male comes the explosive rasping "song" chu-sieeek accompanied by 

 the characteristic lifting of the shoulders, spreading of the wings and tail, and 

 swelling up of the entire plumage. 



As early as March 5 I have seen evidence of mating and sometimes two males 

 have been in pursuit of a single female, resting near her in the tree tops, where 

 they adopted a curious posture with neck stretched up and bill held vertically. 



Nesting. — At the extreme northeastern end of their breeding 

 range, near my home, we have found purple grackles nesting in a 

 variety of situations. Many years ago, in eastern Rhode Island, a 

 colony of a dozen or more pairs nested for several years in a hillside 

 grove of red cedars (Juniperus virginiana) . The nests were placed 

 in the cedars, 10 or 12 feet from the ground, and were made of dried 

 grasses and weed stems, lined with fine dry grass. In the extensive 

 cattail marshes surrounding Squibnocket Pond on Martha's Vineyard 

 Island, we found two well-hidden grackles' nests in the tall, dense, 

 green flags, firmly attached to these cattails, and placed from 2 to 3 

 feet above the water. In that same vicinity there was a colony of 

 eight or ten nests of these birds, 7 or 8 feet up, in a swampy thicket 

 of large bushes. 



On May 29, 1904, at Chatham, Mass., while passing through an 

 apple orchard in full bloom, we noticed a pair of grackles making 

 quite a fuss; their nest was soon located in an upright crotch near 

 the top of one of the apple trees, about 12 feet from the ground; the 

 nest, made of seaweed and coarse grasses and lined with fine grass 

 and horsehair, contained five fresh eggs. 



By contrast, our local purple grackles sometimes select much more 

 inaccessible nesting sites. Within sight of my former residence is a 

 row of tall white pines (Pinus strobus), along the banks of the Taunton 

 River; every year several pairs of grackles have nested near the tops 

 of the these trees, where the nests must have been between 50 and 

 60 feet from the ground; the nests were never disturbed by egg- 



