Species II. GRACULA QUISCALA. 



PURPLE GRAKLE. 



[Plate XXI. Fig. 4.] 



La Pie de la Jatnaique, Brisson, ii., 41. — Buffon, hi., 97, PL Enl. 538. — Ard. Zool. 

 p. 309, No. 154. — Gracula purpurea, the lesser Purple Jackdaw, or Crow Black' 

 bird, Bartram, p. 291.* 



This noted depredator is well known to every farmer of the northern 

 and middle states. About the twentieth of March the Purple Grakles 

 visit Pennsylvania from the south, fly in loose flocks, frequent swamps 

 and meadows, and follow in the furrows after the plough ; their food at 

 this season consisting of worms, grubs, and caterpillars, of which they 

 destroy prodigious numbers, as if to recompense the husbandman before- 

 hand for the havock they intend to make among his crops of Indian 

 corn. Towards evening they retire to the nearest cedars and pine trees 

 to roost ; making a continual chattering as they fly along. On the 

 tallest of these trees they generally build their nests in company, about 

 the beginning or middle of April ; sometimes ten or fifteen nests being 

 on the same tree. One of these nests, taken from a high pine tree, is 

 now before me. It measures full five inches in diameter within, and 

 four in depth ; is composed outwardly of mud, mixed with long stalks 

 and roots of a knotty kind of grass, and lined with fine bent and horse 

 hair. The eggs are five, of a bluish olive color, marked with large spots 

 and straggling streaks of black and dark brown, also with others of a 

 fainter tinge. They rarely produce more than one brood in a season. 



The trees where these birds build are often at no great distance from 

 the farm-house, and overlook the plantations. From thence they issue, 

 in all directions, and with as much confidence, to make their daily 

 depredations among the surrounding fields, as if the whole were intended 

 for their use alone. Their chief attention, however, is directed to the 

 Indian corn in all its progressive stages. As soon as the infant blade 

 of this grain begins to make its appearance above ground, the Grakles 

 hail the welcome signal with screams of peculiar satisfaction ; and with- 

 out waiting for a formal invitation from the proprietor, descend on the 



* "We add the following synonymes : Boat-tailed Grakle, Lath. Gen. Syn. 1, p. 

 460, No. 5. — Maize-thief, Kalm's Travels. — Stit7-nus quiscala, Daudin, 2, p. 316. — 

 Gracula barifa, Journal Acad. Kat. Sciences of Philad. vol. 1, p. 254. — Quiscala 

 versicolor, Bonaparte's Ornitholoyij, vol. i., p. 42, pi. V., female. 



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