BRONZED GRACKLE 415 



shot had a smooth twig somewhat smaller than a pencil protruding 

 four inches from the abdomen. "The bird must have carried the 

 twig for some time, as it was worn smooth and the skin had grown 

 firmly about it." Such accidents may occur when the birds are 

 disturbed and caused to dash about in wild confusion at the roosts. 

 I have seen birds of other species that apparently had rammed 

 themselves into the stiff dead twigs of spruces. 



Kenyon and Uttal (1941) report an unusual case in which a young 

 grackle about two weeks old had met its death by swallowing a string. 

 "A double length of string passed through the esophagus terminating 

 in a tightly packed wad of string in the proventriculus and ventriculus; 

 thus making an exit through the pyloris impossible. The total length 

 of the string, including some three or four inches which protruded from 

 the mouth, was eleven feet, ten inches." 



Although a hardy bird, the bronzed grackle may succumb to storms 

 and sudden changes of temperature. H. Elliott McClure (1945) found 

 nine bronzed grackles among other birds that had been killed in the 

 city park at Portsmouth, Iowa, by a tornado of moderate velocity 

 that had struck the city. In a winter roost of bronzed grackles, 

 starlings, cowbirds and redwings at Urbana, 111., Odum and Pitelka 

 (1939) found 63 dead bronzed grackles, among the many other birds, 

 killed by a driving wind and rain storm followed by a sharp dip in 

 the temperature: "The proportion of Bronzed Grackles and Cowbirds 

 to Starlings in the total storm mortality was certainly much greater 

 than that in the total roosting flock." 



The bronzed grackle is sometimes parasitized by the cowbird; 

 Herbert Friedmann (1929) reports three nests in Illinois and one 

 nest in Iowa which contained eggs of the eastern cowbird and one nest 

 in North Dakota parasitized by the Nevada cowbird (Molothrus ater 

 artemisiae). Later Friedmann (1931) reported a nest of the bronzed 

 grackle found in Texas which contained an egg of the Eastern cowbird. 



It is of interest to note, although not involving parasitism, that 

 eggs of other birds have been found in nests of grackles. M. G. Vaiden 

 of Rosedale, Miss., states that in a mixed colony of bronzed grackles 

 and mourning doves he found a nest of the bronzed grackle containing 

 three young grackles and an egg of the mourning dove. 



Most birds have been found to have a number of external parasites 

 and the bronzed grackle is not an exception. Harold Peters (1936) 

 has found the two lice, Degeeriella illustris (Kell.), and Menacanthus 

 chrysophaeum (Kell.), the fly, Ornithoica confluenta Say, and the 

 tick, Haemaphysalis leporis-palustris Packard, on specimens of the 

 bronzed grackle. 



A new blood parasite Haemoproteus guiscalus obtained from the 



