368 Dr. Coues on the 



vestigatedj and may be said to remain comparatively unknown. 

 The several accounts that have been published are not entirely 

 accurate, or else are imperfect and otherwise unsatisfactory, 

 Mr. Ord's paper (one of the earliest) transposes names, and is 

 deficient in some respects. Bonaparte wrote a short notice to 

 accompany the figure in his continuation of Wilson's ' Ornitho- 

 logy/ but perhaps never saw the bird alive ; his observations on 

 its habits are not entirely pertinent. Nuttall's article is com- 

 piled, almost copied, from this source, and gives nothing new. 

 Audubon's is in advance of the preceding, though still leaving 

 somewhat to be desired. These being the principal, if not the 

 only accounts of the habits of the species that have appeared, 

 it has occurred to me that my facilities for studying the bird in 

 its native marshes might be turned to account in correcting 

 some errors that have been committed, and in completing, it 

 may be, the natural history of the species. 



The Boat-tailed Grackle (or " Jackdaw," as it is usually 

 called) is one of several characteristic species* of the South-At- 

 lantic and Gulf States. But though thus belonging to what is 

 termed the " Carolinian Fauna," it strays to the Middle States 

 occasionally or frequently in summer, and in some instances, 

 it is said, even to Southern New England t- Still it is not 

 abundant, nor even common, beyond the Carolinas. In the 

 other direction it has occurred as far south as the mouth of 

 the Rio Grande j, being associated in Texas with the larger 

 Q. macrurus, that seems to replace it beyond this region. It 

 is, moreover, a maritime species, almost entirely confined to the 

 immediate vicinity of the sea-coast ; so that its range is seen to 

 be unusually restricted, and to be represented only by a narrow 

 belt that follows the shore-line from Texas nearly, or quite, to 

 the Middle districts. Those authors, we think, are wrong who 

 say, without qualification, that it passes beyond the United 



* E. g., among land-birds, Sitta pusilla, Protonotaria citrcea, Helmi- 

 therus swainsoni, Helminthophaga bachmani, Dendrcecn dominica, Collyrio 

 ludovicianus, Cyanospiza ciris, Peuccea (cstivalis, Antrosiomus carolinensis, 

 and Picusquerulus. 



t Cf. Coues, ' Birds of New England,' p. 37, upon the authority of 

 Allen and others. 



X Baird, B. N. A. 1858, p. 555. 



