free ! His love making antics, too, are all the more ridiculous for being earnest. 

 Perched upon the tip-top of an evergreen tree, he thrusts his wings out, spreads 

 his tail, ruffles his feathers, and then throws his head forward like a person about 

 to obtain relief from seasickness. The outcome of all this effort is a sound by no 

 means ravishing, flee-e-k-starr, or simply nve-e-e-t. When the female has been 

 sufficiently impressed by the accomplishments of this vocal contortionist the pair 

 converse in jups of much modified insolence, and in a series of prolonged squeaks 

 of unquestionable affection. 



The tops of evergreen trees have long been favorite nesting places for the 

 bronzed grackle, but, in the comparative scarcity of these, apple trees are second 

 choice. While not strictly gregarious during nesting season, the birds often 

 occupy neighboring trees, and a good sized orchard may contain twenty or thirty 

 nests. They are placed without much regard to concealment, at first, since the 

 nesting is often under way by the 20th of April, but the advancing season is more 

 lavish of its foliage. The nest is quite a bulky affair of dried weed stalks and 

 grasses, with a deep cupshaped matrix of mud and a bountiful lining of grasses 

 and horsehair. As to manner of attachment it combines all known characters, 

 being saddled and settled, as well as anchored by the edge or half swung. The 

 eggs are quaintly spotted and stained or scrawled with umber and purplish black 

 on a dull green or vitreous blue ground. 



During the nesting season the crow blackbird betrays affinity with the crows 

 and jays by helping itself occasionally to the eggs and young of other birds. 

 Although the fault is a grave one, a special investigator does not find that such 

 food bears any sensible proportion to the total amount and concludes that the 

 offense is too infrequent to require discipline at our hands. More serious from; 

 any economic standpoint is the charge that these birds consume quantities of 

 grain, especially corn. Although the mischief is offset by the consumption of an 

 equal amount of insects, and those largely of injurious sorts, it becomes at times 

 unquestionably necessary for the farmer to discourage the depredations of this 

 bird when the corn is in the milk. 



Before the breeding season is over the male begins to gather in some favor- 

 ite "roost" to spend the night, and these companies form the nucleus of large 

 flocks, which are augmented by the arrival of females and young as rapidly as 

 the latter are sufficiently matured. One of these "roosts" comes to include the 

 grackle population for miles around, and often numbers thousands. If quarters 

 are taken up in a village grove or city park, as is not infrequently the case, the 

 noisy congregation affords occasion for comments and conjecture on the part of 

 hundreds of citizens. 



From "Birds of Ohio," by pcrniission. 



55 



