226 
PURPLE GRAKLE. 
They have also, in several instances, been taught to articulate 
some few words pretty distinctly. 
A singular attachment frequently takes place between this 
bird and the Fish-Hawk. The nest of this latter is of very large 
dimensions, often from three to four feet in breadth, and from 
four to five feet high; composed, externally, of large sticks, or 
faggots, among the interstices of which sometimes three or four 
pairs of Crow Blackbirds will construct their nests, while the 
Hawk is sitting, or hatching above. Here each pursues the du- 
ties of incubation, and of rearing their young; living in the 
greatest harmony, and mutually watching and protecting each 
other’s property from depredators. 
Note — The Gracula quiscala of the tenth edition of the 
Systema Naturae was established upon Catesby’s Purple Jack- 
daw. This bird is common in Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, 
where it is still known by the name of Jackdaw; whereas the 
Purple Grakle of Wilson is called Blackbird, or Crow Black- 
bird. The latter is also common in the States south of Virginia; 
but the Jackdaw, after i-earing its young, retires further south 
on the approach of Winter; whereas the Purple Grakle hyemates 
in the southern section of our union, and migrates, in the spring, 
to the middle and northern states, to breed. The female of the 
Crow Blackbird is dark sooty-brown and black; the female of the 
Jackdaw, is “ all over brown,” agreeably to Catesby’s descrip- 
tion. This author states the weight of the Jackdaw to be six 
ounces: the weight of the Crow Blackbird seldom exceeds four 
ounces and a half. That the two species have been confounded 
there is no doubt; and it is not easy to disembroil the confusion 
into which they have been thrown by naturalists, who have 
never had an opportunity of visiting the native regions of both. 
It is evident that Catesby thought there was but one species of 
these birds in Carolina, otherwise he would have discovered, 
that those which he observed, during the winter, in great flocks, 
were different from his Jackdaws, which is the proper summer 
resident of that State, although it is probable that some of the 
