Bronzed Grackle. 71 



a familiar proceediDg in the movements of the grackles. 

 The bluebirds, song sparrows, robins, and meadow larks 

 were the only migrants which preceded the bronzed 

 grackles, and were frequently driven back temporarily by 

 cold blasts. The grackles, however, seemed more weather- 

 wise, and hence I eagerly watched their coming. 



At my home in central Illinois, the grackles have ap- 

 peared as early as the 17th of February, though we com- 

 monly notice the first migrants about the end of the first 

 week of March. They are not long in settling themselves 

 in their regular resorts, and thenceforth their noisy de- 

 monstrations are part of the ordinary life of the locality. 

 They are at home in the tall maples along the streets of 

 the towns, in the evergreen trees of the lawns and gar- 

 dens, and in the groves and orchards of rural districts. 

 The woods and groves of the bottom lands along the 

 rivers become their popular resorts, and the willow 

 borders of the streams and swamp-lakes are usually well 

 populated by the noisy creatures. Their gregarious 

 nature is observable even in their nesting habits, and 

 wherever circumstances are favorable they may be found 

 nesting in colonies containing hundreds of homes. 



The ubiquity of the grackles is naturally due to their 

 varied accomplishments and many-sided character. They 

 take as kindly to the water as the sandpipers, their 

 elongated feet and tarsi giving them facility of movement 

 in the shallow water of the margins of creeks, rivers, and 

 lakes. I have seen them standing and wading in the 

 clear water of shallow ripples, dexterously catching the 

 foolish minnows that sported within reach of their long, 

 strong bills. There rises before me a picture of a woody 

 glen, shaded upon one side by an overhanging wall of 

 rock, along whose base there purled a shallow streamlet. 

 This glen was indeed a haunt for the grackles and my- 

 self, and many pleasant hours have I spent watching 

 the dignified fishers as they stalked through the ripples 

 with quiet, leisurely movements. Every wide-awake boy 

 of the farm knows that the grackles which he surprises 

 along the muddy margin of the little pond in the pasture 

 are there for business, and not merely for pleasure ; and 

 he will further inform you that the crayfish which lie in 



