THE PURPLE GRAKLE. 437 



This bird is rather a large one, being between sixteen and seventeen inches in length, 

 and twenty-two inches across the outspread wings. Its general colour is black, glossed 

 witli blue, green, and purple, in different lights. It is mostly found in the southern 

 portions of the United States, where it passes under the name of jackdaw, and is seen in 

 vast ilocks among the sea islands and marine marshes, busily engaged in finding out the 

 various substances that are left by the retiring tide. It preserves its social disposition 

 even in its nesting, and builds in company among reeds and bushes in the neighbourhood 

 of forests and marshy lands. The eggs are of a whitish colour and generally five in 

 number. It is a migratory bird, leaving America for winter quarters about the latter 

 end of November, and returning in February and March. 



A CLOSELY allied species, popularly called the PURPLE GRAKLE ( Quiscalus verslcolor), 

 inhabits the northern states of America, where it lives in almost incredible numbers ; and 

 although it is very beneficial to the agriculturist during the earlier parts of the year by 

 devouring the grubs and caterpillars, it is so terribly destructive when the crops are 

 ripening, that it seems to counterbalance by its voracity the good which it had previously 

 done. Wilson, in speaking of this bird, makes the following remarks : 



" The trees where these birds build are often at a great distance from the farmhouse, 

 and overlook the plantations. From thence they issue in all directions, and with as much 

 confidence, to make their daily depredations among the surrounding fields, as if the whole 

 were intended for their use alone. Their chief attention, however, is directed to the Indian 

 corn in all its progressive stages. As soon as the infant blade of its grain begins to make 

 its appearance above ground, the Grakles hail the welcome signal with screams of 

 peculiar satisfaction, and, without waiting for a formal invitation from the proprietor, 

 descend on the fields and begin to pull up and regale themselves on the seed, scattering 

 the green blades around. While thus eagerly employed, the vengeance of the gun some- 

 times overtakes them, but these disasters are soon forgotten. 



About the middle of August, when the young ears are in their milky state, they are 

 attacked with redoubled vigour by the Grakles and redwings in formidable and combined 

 bodies. They descend like a blackening, sweeping tempest in the corn, drag off the 

 external covering of twelve or fifteen coats of leaves as dexterously as if done by the 

 hand of man, and having laid bare the corn, leave little behind to the farmer but the 

 cobs and shrivelled skins that contained their favourite fare. I have seen fields of corn of 

 many acres, where more than one-half was thus ruined. 



A few miles from the bank of the Roanoke, on the 20th of January, I met with one of 

 these prodigious armies of Grakles. They rose from the surrounding fields with a noise 

 like thunder, and descending on the length of road before me, covered it and the fences 

 completely with black, and when they again rose, and after a few evolutions descended on the 

 skirts of the high-timbered woods, at that time destitute of leaves, they produced a most 

 singular and striking effect ; the whole trees for a considerable extent, from the top to the 

 lowest branches, seeming as if hung in mourning ; their notes and screaming the mean- 

 while resembling the distant sound of a great cataract, but in more musical cadence, 

 swelling and dying away in the air, according to the fluctuation of the breeze. 



A singular attachment frequently takes place between this bird and the fish-hawk. 

 The nest of this latter is of very large dimensions, often from three to four feet in breadth, 

 and froin four to five feet high ; composed externally of large sticks or faggots, among the 

 interstices of which sometimes three or four pairs of Crow Blackbirds will construct their 

 nests, while the hawk is sitting or hatching above. Here each pursues the duties of 

 incubation and rearing the young, living in the greatest harmony, and protecting each 

 other's property from depredators/' 



The colour of this species resembles that of the great Boat-tail, the violet gloss being 

 remarkably conspicuous on the head and breast, the green on the back of the neck, 

 and a coppery red upon the back and abdomen. All the plumage is extremely glossy and 

 shining, and varies according to the angle at which the light falls upon each fibre. In 

 dimensions the Purple Grakle is not so large as the Great Boat-tail, being only twelve 

 inches .in length, and eighteen across the outspread wings. 



