304 BOAT-TAILED GRACKLE. 



and farther, without finding anything of special interest. We proceed a few steps more. 

 With a thunder-lite noise, as if by magic, hundreds of birds rise and fly to all directions. 

 We see their white and blue plumage and hear their cries. We disturbed a colony of 

 breeding Snowy and Little Blue Herons. Everywhere around the pond on the branches 

 of the trees we notice the frightened birds. , Almost every button bush contains a nest of 

 these birds and there are hundreds of the loose structures built of sticks and stems. 

 The bushes all around are covered with their white excrements, and the moist, w^arm 

 air is filled with the strong and unpleasant smell of fishes. The nests in the bushes 

 belong to the Little Blue Herons, while those in the trees around the pond are Snowy 

 Herons' nests. The Great Blue Heron {Ardea herodias), the American Egret {Ardea 

 egretta), and the Green Heron {A. virescens) are common, but not so numerous as the 

 two first named species. Now and then we may also have the good fortune of 

 meeting the Yellow-crowned Night Heron {Nycticorax violacens) and the very interesting 

 and rare Wood Ibis {Tantalus loculator). 



In the colony of the Little Blue Herons I observed for the first time the breeding 

 habits of the very conspicuous and beautiful Boat-tailed Grackle, or Jackdaw. When 

 the Herons took wing, large numbers of these birds followed them and the noise they 

 made far superseded that of their neighbors. When examining the button bushes I found 

 in every one not occupied by the Herons a Jackdaw's nest. From the nearest trees they 

 uttered their peculiar call-notes sounding like cree-cree-cree. They seemed to live in 

 perfect harmony with their neighbors. A few days later I found another colony of these 

 birds in a very dense grove of small oaks in the open prairie near Spring Creek. Being 

 eminently gregarious at all seasons, the nests were found close together, sometimes two 

 and three in one small tree. These birds resemble the Bronzed Grackle very much, but 

 they are more pleasant in all their manners, and their song and call-notes are much more 

 musical and higher in pitch. They appear in south-eastern Texas rarely before the middle 

 of March firom their winter home, and always in large swarms. They announce their 

 arrival by a mad and grand chorus of singular notes, w^hich is performed in some 

 isolated tree. Just before the time of mating, the flocks of these Grackles "execute 

 sudden and unaccountable evolutions, as if guided by some single commanding spirit; 

 now hovering uncertain, then dashing impulsive, now veering in an instant, and at last 

 taking a long, steady flight towards some distant point." The nests which I found 

 were large but well constructed. The materials used were coarse plant-stems, grasses, 

 and bark-strips, and the lining consisted of finer grasses. The eggs, from three to five 

 in number, are greenish, tinged with olive and brownish, and marked with irregular 

 blotches of deep brown and black. 



The Boat-tailed Grackle inhabits during summer the maritime districts from Texas 

 north to Virginia. Its foods consists of all kinds of insects and seeds, and it has the 

 bad reputation of stealing eggs and young of other birds. 



DESCRIPTION : "Adult male with a metallic gloss greenish, changing through steel-blue on back, scapulars, 

 lesser -vving-coverts, and lower breast to violet on head, neck, chest, and upper breast ; length about 

 15.00 to 17.50 inches ; wing, 7.22 ; tail, 7.14 inches. Adult female: Similar in color to same se.t of 

 Q. macrourus, but lighter and more dawny beneath^ and much browner above, the head and neck of 

 an amber tint; length about 11.50 to 13.00 inches; wing, 5.61; tail, 5.31 inches." (Ridgway.) 



