Species II. GRACULA QUISCALA. 
PURPLE GRAKLE. 
[Plate XXI. Fig. 4.] 
La Pie de la Jamaique, Brisson, ii., 41. — Bdffon, hi., 97, PL Enl. 538. — Ard. Zool. 
p. 309, No. 154. — Gracula purpurea, the lesser Purple Jackdaw, or Crow Black- 
bird, B.^RTRAM, p. 291.* 
This noted depredator is well known to every 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 recompense 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 diameter 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 distance from 
the farm-house, and overlook the plantations. From thence they issue, 
in all directions, and with as much confidence, to make their daily 
depredations among the surrounding fields, as if the whole were intended 
for their use alone. Their chief attention, however, is directed to the 
Indian corn in all its progressive stages. As soon as the infant blade 
of this grain begins to make its appearance above ground, the Grakles 
hail the welcome signal with screams of peculiar satisfaction ; and with- 
out waiting for a formal invitation from the proprietor, descend on the 
* We add the following synonymes : Boat-tailed Grakle, Lath. Gen. Syn. 1, p. 
460, No. 5. — Maize-thief, Kalm's Travels. — Sturnus quiscala, Daudin, 2, p. 316. — 
Gracula barita, Journal Acad. Nat. Sciences of Philad. vol. 1, p. 254. — Quiscala 
versicolor, Bonaparte's Ornitholoyi/, vol. i., p. 42, pi. V., female. 
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