34 PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



bered by tens of thousands. Their daily arrival and departure 

 have become a feature of our borough life. 



None so soon to waken as our feathered foragers : even while 

 the stars stand sentinel at the gates of the summer morn, all is 

 bustle in the colony. Upon their sallying forth, quiet reigns 

 until, toward sunset, when the long platoons wend their way from 

 different feeding-grounds toward Media. Ever and anon a de- 

 tachment will suddenly dive and resume flight at a lower level, 

 while before repairing for final rest a number frequent the head- 

 waters of the lake, bathing or drinking, and chattering as if ex- 

 changing gossip of the day. 



Why this locality should have been selected for roosting pur- 

 poses remains an open problem. The presence, in years past, 

 of a goodly array of coniferous trees, a half-mile distant, in 

 Media Cemetery, may have had some bearing. As such trees 

 grew scarcer, and the progeny reared in their branches became 

 more numerous, lack of lodgings may have brought a dispersion 

 and final abandonment of that secure retreat. 



The Pennsylvania Legislature, by Act of April 22nd, 1905, 

 removed the Grackle from the list of hitherto protected species 

 and classed it among the game birds, with an open season from 

 September 1st to the first day of January following. The in- 

 creased activity of gunners has led the greater number of the 

 birds to desert their accustomed haunts and pre-empt safer quar- 

 ters in the evergreens and taller trees in the western part of the 

 town. From these the southward passage was taken on Novem- 

 ber 1st, and but few stragglers have since been seen. 



Of sombre plumage, songless, detested by the farmer, a pil- 

 ferer of the nests of other birds — still we feel we cannot do with- 

 out the Grackle. His arrival tells us that winter has been 

 passed, and is a prophecy of the halycon days to follow. 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. 



The number of birds frequenting the Grackle roost at Media 

 has been very much smaller this autumn than usual. The 

 repeal of the law protecting the Grackle has had a very de- 

 moralizing effect. 



For sometime after the birds began flocking to their accus- 



