44 



PURPLE GRAKLE. 

 GHACULA QUISCALA. 

 [Plate XXL— Fig. 4.] 



Linn. Syst. 165. — La Pie de la Jamaique, Brisson, II, 41. — Bufpon, III, 97. PL Enl, 

 538. — Arct. Zool. p. 263. JVo. 153. — Gracula Purpurea^ the lesser Purple Jackdaw, or 

 Crow Blackbird, Bartram,/?. 289. — Peale's Museum, No. 1582, 



THIS noted depredator is well known to every careful farmer 

 of the northern and middle states. About the twentieth of March 

 the Purple Grakles visit Pennsylvania from the south, fly in loose 

 flocks, frequent swamps and meadows, and follow in the furrows 

 after the plough; their food at this season consisting of worms, 

 grubs, and caterpillars, of which they destroy prodigious numbers, 

 as if to recompence the husbandman before hand for the havock 

 they intend to make among his crops of Indian corn. Towards 

 evening they retire to the nearest cedars and pine trees to roost; 

 making a continual chattering as they fly along. On the tallest 

 of these trees they generally build their nests in company, about 

 the beginning or middle of April; sometimes ten or fifteen nests 

 being on the same tree. One of these nests, taken from a high 

 pine tree, is now before me. It measures full five inches in dia- 

 meter within, and four in depth; is composed outwardly of mud, 

 mixed with long stalks and roots of a knotty kind of grass, and 

 lined with fine bent and horse hair. The eggs are five, of a bluish 

 olive color, marked with large spots and straggling streaks of black 

 and dark brown, also with others of a fainter tinge. They rarely 

 produce more than one brood in a season. 



The trees where these birds build are often at no great dis- 

 tance from the farm house, and overlook the plantations. From 



