FLORIDA BOAT-TAILED GRACKLE 359 



to those of the eastern race (see p. 367). In the Lake Okeechobee 

 area of Florida, the birds often nest in willows. 



Eggs. — Unlike the eastern grackle, for which four or even five eggs 

 have been reported in many nests, three is the usual number of eggs 

 for the Florida race. E. A. Mcllhenny (1937) states that in Louisiana 

 the complement of eggs is "invariably three," although he once did 

 find four in a nest. The eggs are identical with those of the eastern 

 boat-tailed grackle. 



Incubation. — E. A. Mcllhenny (1937) says: "The male pays not 

 the slightest attention to the female after copulation is accomplished; 

 neither does he visit the nesting location in the early part of the 

 nesting season with any regularity, nor does he assist in the building 

 of the nest or in the care of the young." He prefaces these observa- 

 tions by stating that in its courtship and lack of attention to the 

 young, "the Boat-tailed Grackle differs from any other American 

 bird I have ever observed." 



S. A. Grimes of Jacksonville, Fla., writes (MS.) that he has 

 "never seen a male mexicanus of any race lend a hand in any manner 

 to assist in nest-building, incubation, or care of the young," and 

 Ivan R. Tompkins of Savannah, Ga., tells me (MS.) that no male 

 he ever collected had "worn incubation patches." 



As might be expected, the peculiar breeding habits of the boat- 

 tailed grackle is reflected in the sex ratio of the young. In a polyg- 

 amous species one would expect a preponderance of females, and 

 such is normally the case with the boat-tail. Illustrative of specific 

 figures in this regard, Mcllhenny (1940), who checked 89 nests at 

 Avery Island, La., and found that the hatch comprised 70 males 

 and 145 females, rather more than a 2-to-l majority. In his extensive 

 banding operations Mcllhenny found this ratio consistently carried 

 out in trapped birds. In 1935 and 1936 he banded 1,848 boat-tails, 

 of which 609 were males and 1,239 females, practically the same 

 proportion. He adds the interesting observation that banding has 

 proved that "while the females of the previous year nest as yearlings, 

 the males do not reach the breeding age until the second year." 



Another characteristic at which I have often wondered is the 

 unusual percentage of infertile eggs in nests of the boat- tail. On 

 many an occasion, when investigating the home life of this bird and 

 examining nests of young, I have found at the bottom an unhatched 

 egg or even two; and now and then a search of the nests after the 

 season has revealed these lonely reminders of an unborn progeny. 

 I have not heretofore mentioned this in print, nor have I ever made 

 any systematic count of the occurrence of this peculiarity. The 

 only author who ever has, as far as I know, is E. A. Mcllhenny (1937), 

 who found in one Louisiana colony that" twelve out of nineteen nests 



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