Genus XVI. GRACULA. GRAKLE. 

 Species I. GRACULA FERRUGINEA. 



RUSTY GRAKLE.* 



[Plate XXI. Fig. 3.] 



Black O.iole, Arct. Zool. p. 259, No. UA.— Rusty Oriole, Ibid. p. 260, No. 146.— 

 New York Thrush, Ibid. p. 339, No. •lOb.—Hudsonian Thrush, Ibid. No. 234, 

 female. — Labrador Thrush, Ibid. p. 340, No. 206. 



Here i.s a single species described by one of the most judicious 

 naturalists of Great Britain no less than five difierent times ! The greater 

 part of these descriptions is copied by succeeding naturalists, whose 

 synonymes it is unnecessary to repeat. So great is the uncertainty in 

 judging, from a mere examination of their drifed or stuffed skins, of the 

 particular tribes of birds, many of which, for several years, are con- 

 stantly varying in the colors of their plumage ; and at diiferent seasons, 

 or difierent ages, assuming new and very difierent appearances. Even 

 the size is by no means a safe criterion, the difierence in this respect 

 between the male and female of the same species (as in the one now 

 before us) being sometimes very considerable. 



This bird arrives in Pennsylvania, from the north, early in October ; 

 associates with the Red-wings, and Cow-pen Buntings, frequents corn- 

 fields, and places where grasshoppers a;re plenty ; but Indian corn, at 

 that season, seems to be its principal food. It is a very silent bird, 

 having only now and then a single note, or chuck. We see them occa- 

 sionally until about the middle of November, when they move ofi" to the 

 south. On the twelfth of January I overtook great numbers of these 

 birds in the woods near Petersburgh, Virginia, and continued to see 

 occasional parties of them almost every day as I advanced southerly, 

 particularly in South Carolina, around the rice plantations, where they 

 were numerous ; feeding about the hog-pens, and wherever Indian corn 

 was to be procured. They also extend to a considerable distance west- 

 ward. On the fifth of March, being on the banks of the Ohio, a few 

 miles below the mouth of the Kentucky river, in the midst of a heavy 

 snow-storm, a fiock of these birds alighted near the door of the cabin 



* The Genus Gracula, as at present restricted, consists of only a single species ; 

 the others formerly included in it have been distributed in other genera. The two 

 species desci'bed by Wilson belong to the genus Icterus as adopted by Temminck. 



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