A COLONY OF GRAKLES. 105 



beeches, sole survivors of the forest primeval, are large 

 enough to hold a thousand nests, and have often held 

 all that a colony has built. The elm and lindens could 

 hold a hundred without crowding. These trees were 

 considered, I thought, for they apparently underwent a 

 very searching inspection, but during February there 

 was nothing to indicate that a choice of locality had 

 been made. Making no sign, they left on the approach 

 of a "cold snap," and were gone for weeks; and when, 

 in March, they came again, the whole proceeding was 

 repeated, and the pines were elected the nesting-trees of 

 '84. They lingered about them much of every day. 

 They tore away the rubbish that marked last year's 

 nests, a proceeding I never witnessed before ; and then, 

 although no active operations were commenced, these 

 grakles stayed about the trees until the time for build- 

 ing had arrived. Any one to whose attention the mat- 

 ter was called would prophesj'- without hesitation that 

 the grakles, even early in March, had decided upon 

 nesting in the pines — and so they did. 



The nest is usually a bulky and stronglj'^-built struct- 

 ure, every twig and blade of grass being well inter- 

 twined with the others ; but there is one very prevalent 

 defect in the architecture of these nests : they are inse- 

 curely anchored to the supporting branches of the tree. 

 It is no uncommon occurrence, during a high wind, for 

 the nests to become loosened from their places and fall 

 to the ground. They always come down bodily and 

 remain intact, and it is seldom that enough twigs remain 

 in the tree to point out the former sites of the nests that 

 have met with such irreparable disaster. 



5* 



