224 PASSERES.— STURNID^. 



shifted continually. During the whole time their 

 singular voices were in full cry, and could be 

 heard at a great distance ; some idea may be 

 formed of the effect of the whole, by imagining 

 two or three hundred small table bells of varying 

 tones to be rung at the same time. By half- 

 an-hour after sunset, the arrivals had pretty well 

 ceased, and most of the birds were quietly set- 

 tled for the night. I visited them on one or two 

 subsequent evenings, but found no material dif- 

 ference in their proceedings. 



As the Tinkling roosts in society, so does it 

 build. The nests, to the number of twenty or 

 thirty, are placed in a single tree, usually a hog- 

 plum, {Spondias graveolens). One of these trees, 

 chosen every year as a nesting tree, being on the 

 property of a friend, a nest, one of fourteen then 

 built, was brought down for my inspection. It 

 consists of a deep, compact, and well-formed cup, 

 the hollow of which is as large as a pint basin; 

 the sides, about an inch and a half thick, formed 

 of flexible stems of weeds, and stalks of guinea 

 grass. It contained three eggs, measuring l^-^ inch 

 by -f^, of a dull pale blue-green, singularly marked 

 with sinuated lines of black. I am assured that 

 when the company have hatched their broods for 

 the season, they tear away with their feet the 

 nests, and scatter the materials; and that should 

 any other bird have a nest on the same tree, it 

 is mercilessly destroyed with the rest, regardless 

 of the eggs or young which it may contain. The 

 nests are placed on the forks of divergent branches. 



