iiORTU AMERICAN BIRDS. 



351 



height of twenty or thirty feet. It is large and bulky and constructed externally of a 

 rough frame of twigs, with a layer of mud, lined with fine rootlets, grasses, horse 

 and cow hairs. As many as a dozen nests have been found in a single cypress tree. 

 All the nests found by Mr. Bryant near Carson, Nevada, were upon the ground, 

 vsually on the edge of a bank formed by an irrigating ditch, with the exception of 

 one, which was built two feet from the ground upon dry tule and well hidden by the 

 growing stems. In a large series of eggs extreme variations will be found in the 

 shape, color and size. They are of a dull greenish-white or gray, with numerous 

 streaks and blotches of dark brown; in some the markings are very large and of a 

 lighter shade, in others smaller, but so numerous as to conceal the ground-color. 

 Ten eggs measure: .96x.71, .93x.77, 1.02x.70, i.Olx.76, 1.03x.68, l.OOx.73, 1.05x.75, 1.06x 

 .78, 1.07X.73. 1.09X.73. 



511. Purple GRACitLE (After Audubon). 



■.JfS) 511. PTTEPLE OBACKLE. Quisnalus quisciila (Linn.) Geog. Dist.— Atlantic 

 Coast of the United States (except Southern Florida), north to Massachusetts. 



A well-known and an abundant species of the Atlantic coast, and commonly 

 called Crow Blackbird. Its nest is built in trees of almost any kind, usually, how- 



