PURPLE GRACKLE 379 



tail appears split or forked, this gap becomes wider as successive 

 pairs of feathers are lost, but by the time the outer pair is dropped the 

 new central feathers have grown out and the outline of the tail is 

 pointed or wedge-shaped." 



Harold B. Wood has sent me the following notes on the colors of the 

 iris in the purple grackle : " The young have brown irides, which by the 

 absorption of the pigment, change to gray and lemon, ivory or white. 

 The young of the year have uniformly dark brown irides until fall. 

 Early spring birds have gray, lemon, ivory, or white irides. No bird 

 which I trapped and banded with brown or gray eyes ever returned to 

 the traps." As the iris in the adult is pale lemon color, or almost 

 white, it appears that the brown iris is confined to the youngest birds 

 and that the gray iris marks a transition stage of adolescence. 



Food. — Beal's (1900) report on the contents of 2,346 stomachs of 

 crow blackbirds includes the food of both the purple and the bronzed 

 grackles, and will be considered under the latter subspecies. It seems 

 proper to discuss here only such reports as refer especially to the purple 

 grackle. 



In his report on the birds of Pennsylvania, B. H. Warren (1890) 

 gives the following list of the contents of several series of stomachs, 

 collected in various months: 



March — Twenty-nine examined. They showed chiefly insects and seed; in 

 five corn was present, and in four wheat and oats were found. All of these grains, 

 however, were in connection with an excess of insect food. 



April — Thirty-three examined. They revealed chiefly insects, with but a small 

 amount of vegetable matter. 



May — Eighty-two examined. Almost entirely insects, cut-worms being 

 especially frequent. 



June — Forty-three examined. Showed generally insects, cut-worms in abun- 

 dance; fruits and berries present, but to very small extent. 



July — Twenty-four examined. Showed mainly insects; berries present in limited 

 amount. 



August — Twenty-three examined. Showed chiefly insects, berries, and corn. 



September — Eighteen examined. Showed insects, berries, corn and seeds. 



October — During this month (1882), the writer made repeated visits to roosting- 

 resorts, where these birds were collected in great numbers, and shot 378, which 

 were examined. Of this number the following is the result of examinations, in 

 detail, of 111 stomachs: 



Thirty, corn and coleoptera (beetles) ; twenty-seven, corn only; fifteen, orthoptera 

 (grasshoppers); eleven, corn and seeds; eleven, corn and orthoptera; seven, cole- 

 optera; three, coleoptera and orthoptera; three, wheat and coleoptera; two, wheat 

 and corn; one, diptera (flies). 



The remaining 267 birds were taken from the 10th to the 31st of the month, 

 and their food was found to consist almost entirely of corn. 



These examinations show that late in the fall, when insect food is scarce, corn is 

 especially preyed upon by these birds, but during the previous periods of their 

 residence with us, insects form a large portion of their diet. 



