SPECIES 2. GRACULA QUISKMLd. 

 PURPLE GRAKLE. 

 [Plate XXL Fig. 4.] 



La Fie de la Jamaique, BRISSON, n, 41. BUFFON, in, 97, PL Enl. 

 538. Arct. Zool.p. 309, JVo. 154. Gracula purpurea, the les- 

 ser Purple Jackdaw, or Crow Blackbird, BARTRAM, p. 291. 

 PEALE'S Museum, JVo. 1582.* 



THIS noted depredator is well known to every farmer of the 

 northern and middle states. About the twentieth of March the 

 Purple Grakles visit Pennsylvania from the south, fly in loose 

 flocks, frequent swamps and meadows, and follow in the furrows 

 after the plough; their food at this season consisting of worms, 

 grubs, and caterpillars, of which they destroy prodigious num- 

 bers, as if to recompense the husbandman before hand for the 

 havock they intend to make among his crops of Indian corn. 

 Towards evening they retire to the nearest cedars and pine 

 trees to roost; making a continual chattering as they fly along. 

 On the tallest of these trees they generally build their nests in 

 company, about the beginning or middle of April; some- 

 times ten or fifteen nests being on the same tree. One of these 

 nests, taken from a high pine tree, is now before me. It mea- 

 sures full five inches in diameter within, and four in depth; is 

 composed outwardly of mud, mixed with long stalks and roots 

 of a knotty kind of grass, and lined with fine bent and horse 

 hair. The eggs are five, of a bluish olive colour, marked with 

 large spots and straggling streaks of black and dark brown, also 



* We add the following synonymes: Boat-tailed Grakle, LATH. Gen. Syn. 1, 

 p. 460, JVb. 5. Maize-thief, KALM'S Travels. Sturnus quiscala, DAUDIN, 2, p. 

 316. Gracula barita, Journal Acad. Nat. Sciences of Philad. vol. 1, p. 254. 

 Quiscala versicolor, BONAPARTE'S Ornithology, vol. i, p. 42, pi. V, female. 



