356 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



light bluish green spotted and blotched with chocolate, brown, 

 drab and gray, especially about the larger end. The food 

 consists largely of insects, about the same range in general 

 being eaten as is eaten by the Red-wing Blackbirds. 



Genus QUISCALUS Vieillot. 

 Subgenus QUISCALUS. 



511b. Quiscalus quiscula ceneus (Ridgw.). Bronzed Grackle; 

 Crow Blackbird. 



Plumage of adult male : back and rump bronzy green ; head, neck and 

 breast glossy metallic purple to iridescent steel blue ; wing and tail bluish 

 black, glossy ; lower breast and belly dull black. Plumage of adult females 

 and immature : duller and browner than that of the male and with few or 

 no metallic reflections. Wing 5.60 ; culmen 1.20 ; tarsus 1.40. 



Geog. Dist. — From the Alleghanies and southern New England to New- 

 foundland and Great Slave Lake, west to the eastern base of the Rocky 

 Mountains, south to Louisiana and Texas ; wintering in the lower Mississippi 

 region, thence into Mexico, and occasional in winter in New England. 



County Records. — Androscoggin ; fairly common summer resident, (John- 

 son). Aroostook; common summer resident locally, (Knight). Cumberland; 

 common summer resident, (Mead). Franklin; common summer resident, 

 (Swain).Hancock ; common summer resident, (Knight). Kennebec ; rare sum- 

 mer resident, (Gardiner Branch). Knox; migrant, (Rackliff). Oxford; breeds 

 rarely, (Nash). Penobscot; common summer resident, locally, (Knight). 

 Piscataquis; common summer resident, (Homer). Sagadahoc ; rare, three speci- 

 mens, (Spinney). Somerset; common summer resident, (Morrell). Waldo; 

 common local summer resident, (Knight). Washington; very abundant 

 summer resident, (Boardman). York; (Adams). 



Near Bangor the species arrives sometimes as early as March 

 fifteenth, and usually by March thirtieth, but rarely even not 

 until April fifteenth, and from then until about October twenty- 

 sixth it may be found here as well as elsewhere throughout 

 the State. They nest in the evergreen trees in a number of 

 yards in Bangor and other similar spots about country dwellings 

 elsewhere in the State, but their favorite habitat is in the 

 flooded swampy lands about the slow streams, ponds and lakes 

 as well as along many of the rivers. A large colony nest on 



