94 SOCIAL HABITATIONS. 
Grakles, or Crow-Blackbirds, are permitted by the fish- 
hawk to build their nests among the interstices of the sticks 
of which its own is constructed,—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. JI 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 corner on the premises, 
had been anxious to share, as much as possible, the com- 
pany and protection of this generous bird.’ In another 
place, the same writer remarks that the curious allies 
“mutually 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 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 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 produced a most 
singular and striking effect, the whole trees, for a consider- 
able extent, seeming as if hung in mourning; their notes 
and screaming the meanwhile resembling the distant sound 
of a great cataract, but in more musical cadence, swelling 
and dying away on the ear, according to the fluctuations 
of the breeze.” 
It is evident that such vast multitudes of birds cannot 
all have been nurtured in the interstices of osprey nests, 
