AVERY BIRD COLLECTION 77 



They retreating from this strange apparition, it pursued 

 them to the roof of the pigeon house. It must be caught 

 and fed, poor little famished bird. A long fishing pole 

 dislodged it from the pigeon house. It flew into a pine 

 nearby; scared from this it lighted in another; still 

 pursued by hunger and not knowing where to go, it took 

 a long flight which brought it near to the ground, but 

 still in a pine; another and another time compelled to 

 fly, it left the pine grove and flew to the hillside where 

 its parents had fallen to my gun ; again frightened from 

 its perch, a long flight brought it to an oak where it set- 

 tled on a limb near the ground ; once more disturbed, and 

 its wings now weak with constant use, it made about 

 seventy-five yards of trajectory and grappling at the low- 

 est limbs of a willow fell to the ground. The cries of 

 hunger were soon appeased by a bountiful supply and 

 the little captive seems happy with his brothers. Its ef-* 

 forts to escape after it had fallen hungry and tired to 

 the ground were in vain ; its feeble wings refused to bear 

 it aloft. 



"Why were its parents killed? A problem in ornithol- 

 ogy was to be solved. A pair of grackles must be col- 

 lected, and only a mated pair! to prove whether the 

 bronze and Florida grackles interbreed, or whether they 

 belong to different species. Three mated pairs have ak 

 ready been collected, and there has yet been found no 

 crossing of the two species ; hence the conclusion is that 

 they do not mate except with their own kind. This was 

 a cruel task and one which will be pursued no more by 

 me. It was done at the suggestion of Professor Robert 

 Ridgway of Washington City." ^.-j 



The next paragraph, dated June 11, 1890, gives the 

 catalog numbers of the six mated birds sent to Mr. Ridg- 

 way and the exact localities where the specimens were 

 collected. There is also a short discussion of relation- 

 ships, but this is substantially the same as the published 

 notes of 1891, already quoted. 



"1891. March 22, The crow blackbirds taken on May 

 20th, 1890, and June 4th and 5th of the same year, lived 

 harmoniously together till they were full grown when 



