BIRDS OF NEW YORK 249 



feet. Such a locality is a veritable bedlam at dusk when the birds are 

 coming in and settling for the night. In these localities they are associated 

 to a greater or less extent with Red- winged blackbirds and cowbirds. 

 On the Montezuma marshes, in the spring and fall, I have seen tens of 

 thousands of grackles come in from the migration nights to roost amongst 

 the dead sedges. This grackle has a coarse call note, sounding somewhat 

 like the syllable " clack," which he utters when on the migration flight or 

 on the way to and from his roosting grounds, and a similar note though 

 louder serves as his alarm when the nest is approached or when he is 

 suddenly disturbed. In the spring he has also a song which, however, 

 is uttered with great difficulty and when successfully produced is far from 

 melodious. It has a loud metallic squeaky quality which has given this 

 bird the name of " rusty hinge " or " creaky hinge " in various parts of 

 the country. It is commonly uttered while the bird is perched on some 

 tree or fence post, and is accompanied by a puffing out of the plumage, 

 a partial extension of the wings, and a spreading of the tail, until he seems 

 actually to burst with the hoarse squawk. This performance reminds one 

 of the similar actions of the Red-winged blackbird and the Cowbird when 

 uttering their love notes. The grackle has been placed for many years 

 on the black list in this State along with the crows, hawks and English 

 sparrows; and I will confess that my experience leads me to believe that 

 this is a just decision of our lawmakers, not only because of the destructive- 

 ness of the Crow blackbird to fields of corn, as well as other grain, green 

 peas and small fruits, but particularly on account of his appetite for the 

 eggs and young of smaller birds which might do much more good than he 

 would if left to grow and multiply. My experience on a single farm will 

 serve to show what my general estimate of this bird would be. This farm 

 had an orchard, pond, brook, patches of willows, meadowland, pasture 

 and a large lawn with shade trees, including several evergreens. It was 

 the happy home of numerous robins, Least flycatchers, Yellow warblers, 

 Chipping sparrows, Song sparrows, Purple finches, Cedar birds, cuckoos 

 and other useful species. As soon as the evergreens grew so tall that the 



