WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



The yellow - headed blackbird, a kinsman of 

 larger size, belongs properly northwest of Lake 

 Superior, but frequently gets into Michigan and 

 Illinois. The bright-yellow head and neck make 

 it very noticeable if seen. Its habits are essential- 

 ly those of the redwing. 



We have another set of blackbirds in the Atlantic 

 States, of greater size than the redwings, commonly 

 known as " crow "-blackbirds, but called " grakles" 

 in the books. There are several species, but none 

 are greatly different from that too-common pest 

 of our cornfields, the purple grakle. 



The real home of the grakles, although along 

 the edges of the swamps, is not among the reeds 

 where the redwing and bobolink sit and swing, 

 but rather in the bushes and trees skirting the 

 muddy shores. They build their nests in a variety 

 of positions, but usually a convenient fork in an 

 alder-bush is chosen, twenty or thirty pairs often 

 dwelling within a radius of a hundred feet. The 

 nest is a rude, strong affair of sticks and coarse 

 grass-stalks lined with finer grass, and looks very 

 bulky and rough beside the neat structure of the 

 redwing; which illustrates how much better a re- 

 sult can be produced by an artistic use of the same 

 material. In the case of these, as well as the red- 



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