RUSTY GRAKLE 



43 



breast, head, neck, and back, tinctured with brown ; every feather 

 being skirted with ferruginous ; over the eye is a light line of pale 

 brown, below that one of black passing through the eye. This 

 brownness gradually goes off towards spring, for almost all those 

 I shot in the southern states were but slightly marked with ferru- 

 ginous. The female is nearly an inch shorter; head, neck, and 

 breast almost wholly brown; a light line over the eye, lores black; 

 belly and rump ash; upper and under tail coverts skirted with 

 brown; wings black, edged with rust color; tail black, glossed with 

 green; legs, feet and bill as in the male. 



These birds might easily be domesticated. Several that I 

 had winged and kept for some time, became in a few days quite 

 familiar, seeming to be very easily reconciled to confinement. 



