THB PTJKPLE GEAKLE. 475 



several, pairs of Grakles taking up their abode there, like humble 

 vassals around the castle of their chief, — ^laying, hatching their 

 young, and living together in mutual harmony. I have found 

 no less than four of these nests clustered round the sides of the 

 former, and a fifth fixed on the nearest branch of the adjoining 

 tree, as if the proprietor of this last, unable to find an unoccupied 

 comer on the premises, had been anxious to share, as much as 

 possible, the company and protection of this generous bird." 

 In another place, the same writer remarks that the curious 

 allies " mutiially watch and protect each other's property from 

 depredators." 



These Grakles exist in great numbers, and sweep over the 

 land in vast flocks, like our own starlings, their wings sounding 

 like the blast of a tempest as they rise from the ground, and 

 their bodies darkening the air. " A few miles from the banks of 

 the Eoanoke, on the 20th of Janiiary, 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 all the fences completely with 

 black; and when they again rose, and, after a few evolutions, 

 descended on the skirts of the high timbered woods, they pro- 

 duced a most singular and striking effect, the whole trees, for 

 a considerable extent, seeming as if hung in mourning; their 

 notes and screaming the meanwhile resembling the distant soimd 

 of a great cataract, but in more musical cadence, swelling and 

 dying away on the ear, according to the fiuctuations of the 

 breeze." 



It is evident that such vast multitudes of birds cannot all 

 have been nurtured in the interstices of osprey nests. Indeed, 

 the geneitdity of the birds build in tall trees, usually associating 

 together, so that fifteen or twenty nests are made in the same 

 tree. The nests ore well and carefully made of mud, roots, and 

 grasses, about four inches in depth, and warmly lined with 

 horsehair and very fine grasses. The fact that the bird possesses 

 this capability of nest-building, gives more interest to the occa- 

 sional habit of sharing its home with the osprey — a privilege of 

 which it seems to avail itself whenever an osprey's nest is 

 within reach. 



The colour of this bird appears at a little distance to be black, 

 but is in reality a very deep purple, changing in different lights 



