THE PERCHING BIRDS. 135 



The orchard oriole's nest is of simpler construction 

 than that of the other species. Some that I have 

 found were made wholly of pine-needles, and were 

 placed in the upper branches of tall Weymouth pines. 

 Other nests in deciduous trees were made wholly of 

 flexible grasses neatly interwoven, but all were cups, 

 and not deep at that. 



During the summer the birds are not associated, 

 although I have known an " Orchard" and a " Balti- 

 more" to have nests in the same tree ; but the young 

 of the former and of the latter are found together 

 prior to their autumnal flight to warmer regions. 



The Rusty Grakle, or Blackbird, is a migrant only 

 in the Middle States, coming in March and reappear- 

 ing in October, and in the latter month we can always 

 find an abundance of them in the tide-water marshes 

 of the Delaware. Their summer home is in Northern 

 New England and Canada. 



Brewer's Blackbird is a Western species found from 

 " Eastern Kansas and Minnesota to the Pacific." 



Dr. Coues says of them, 



" Several kinds of Blackbirds are abundant in Arizona, but the 

 present surpasses them all in numbers. . . . They are eminently 

 gregarious when not breeding." 



We have now to briefly consider a bird as familiar 

 to us all as the crow, and that is the Crow-blackbird, 

 or preferably the Purple Grakle. They are both 

 resident and migratory in the Middle States and resi- 

 dent southward. In New England the bird appears 

 to be replaced by the Bronzed Grakle that is found 

 west of the Alleghanies. The Grakle of the Middle 

 States is purple when seen in the hand, and has an 



