352 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



If approached, it flies a short distance into a low tree, and 

 watches the intruder, uttering its alarm-note check, — some- 

 times, cheek-che wiech or check che wbecha. This note is 

 uttered by both sexes, and seems to be the only song pos- 

 sessed by either. I have observed them carefully, not only 

 in the spring, but during the breeding season and in the 

 autumn, and I never heard them emit any other. Both 

 sexes incubate, and manifest great anxiety when the nest is 

 approached ; the males flying a*id scolding over the head 

 of the intruder, in the manner of the Red-winged Blackbird 

 As I paddled my canoe up beneath one of the nests de- 

 scribed above, the parent bird remained sitting, almost until- 

 my hand touched the limb on which the structure was 

 placed. On flying off, she uttered a chattering cry, almost 

 exactly like that of the female Redwing when disturbed 

 in a similar manner. 



Early in September, the old and young birds collect in 

 small detached flocks, and frequent the same localities that 

 they haunt in spring, from which they occasionally visit old 

 cornfields and stubble-fields, where they catch grasshoppers 

 and other insects, and eat the seed of weeds and such grains 

 as are left by the farmer after harvesting. 



They remain in southern New England until early in 

 November. 



QUISCALUS, Vieillot. 



Quiscalus, Vieit.lot, Analyse (1816). (Gray.) (Type Gracula quiscala, L.) 

 Bill as long as the head, the culmen slightly curved, the gonys almost straight; 

 the edges of the bill inflected and rounded; the commissure quite strongly sinuated; 

 outlines of tarsal scutellse well defined on the sides ; wings shorter than the tail, 

 sometimes much more so ; tail long, the feathers conspicuously and decidedly gradu- 

 ated. Colors black. 



QUISCALUS VEESICOLOE — Vieillot. 



The Crow Blackbird ; Purple Grakle. 



Gracula quiscala, Linnaeus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 165. Wils. Am. Orn., Ill 

 (1811) 44. 



Quiscalus versicolor, Vieillot. Analyse? (1816). lb., Nouv. Diet, XXVIII. 

 1819) 488 Nutt. Man., I. (1832) 194. And. Orn. Biog., I. (1831) 35; V. (1838) 481 



