224 NORTI[ AMERICAN BIRDS. 



jpliiiitors. Ill till! early soasoii they seek their I'ood ainoiig the large salt 

 inavslics ol' the sealioanl, and along the imuUly banks of creeks and rivers. 

 Tliey do great damage to the rice plantations, both when the grain is in the 

 .soi't state and afterwards when the ripened grain is stacked. They also feed 

 very largely npon the small crabs called tiddlers, so common in all the niiid 

 Mats, earth\M)rms, various insects, sliriini)S, and other acpiatic forms of tiie 

 like character. 



A few of these birds are resident throughout the year, though the 

 greater part retire farther south during a portion of the winter. They 

 return in l-'ebruary, in full ])himage, when they mate. They resort, by pairs 

 and in conii)aiiies, to certain favorite breeding-places, where they begin to 

 construct their nests. They do not, however, even in Florida, begin to breed 

 betbre Ajjril. They build a large and clumsy nest, made of very coarse 

 and miscellaneous materials, chietly sticks and fragments of dry weeds, 

 sedges, and strips of bark, lined with finer stems, fibrous roots, and grasses, 

 and have from three to five eggs. 



It is a very singular but well-established characteristic of this species, 

 that no sooner is their nest completed and incubation commenced than the 

 mail! birds all desert their mates, and, joining one another in flocks, keep 

 ajiart from the females, feeding by them.selvcs, until they are joined by the 

 young birds and their niolhers in the I'all. 



These facts and this trait of character in this species have been fully con- 

 firmed by the observations of iJr. J^)achnian of Charleston. In 1832 he 

 visited a breeding-locality of these birds. On a single Smilax bush he found 

 more than thirty nests of the Grakles, from three to five feet apart, some 

 of them not more than fifteen inches above the water, and only females were 

 seen about the nests, no males making their a])pearance. Dr. Bachman also 

 visited colonics of these nests placed upon live-oak trees thirty or forty feet 

 from the ground, and carefully watched the manners of the old birds, but 

 has never found any males in the vicinity of their nests after the eggs had 

 been laid. They always keep at a distance, feeding in flocks in the marshes, 

 leaving the females to take charge of their nests and young. They have but 

 one brood in a season. 



As these Ijirds fly, in loose flocks, they continually utter a jieculiar cry, 

 which Mi: Audubon states rc^-^nibles or may be re]iresented by l-irrirk, rrick, 

 crick. Their usual notes .are harsh, resembling loud, shrill whistles, ■ud are 

 fre(pieutly accompanied with their ordinary cry of crick-crick-cnr. In the 

 love-season these notes are said to be more pleasing, and are changed into 

 sounds which Audubon states resendile firif, tirit, titiri-titiri-titiree, rising 

 from low to high M-itli great regularity and emphasis. The cry of the young 

 bird, when just a to fly, he compares to the whistling cry of some kind 

 of frogs. 



The males are charged by Mr. Audulxm with attfickiug birds of other 

 species, driving them from their nests and sucking their eggs. 



