54 
THE BOAT-TAILED GRAKLE. 
fifteen inches above the surface of the water. The nests contained mostly 
three eggs each, and were all quite fresh. The old birds were not near. 
In about a quarter of an hour afterwards, a flock of females appeared, sail- 
ing around us, chattering as if distressed at our intrusion. Some of them 
were shot, but the remainder still continued in the neighbourhood, unwilling 
to leave their nests. It was singular to observe that no males made their 
appearance. I have visited the nests of this species, when placed on live 
oak-trees, where they also breed in communities, thirty or forty feet above 
the ground. I watched the manners of the old birds, the way in which 
they built their nests, and their young, until fully fledged, but never found 
the males in the vicinity of the nests from the time the eggs were laid. The 
males always kept at a distance, and in flocks, feeding principally in the 
marshes, at this season of the year, the females alone taking charge of their 
nest and young. These latter are excellent eating whilst squabs. They 
do not leave the nest until fully fledged, although they often stand on the 
borders of it awaiting the arrival of the mother, squatting back into it at 
the least appearance of danger.” 
The nest of the Boat-tailed Grakle is large, and composed of dry sticks, 
mosses, coarse grasses, and leaves intertwined. The interior is formed of 
fine grass, circularly disposed, and over this is a lining of fibrous roots. The 
eggs are four or five, of a dull white colour, irregularly streaked with brown 
and black. This species raises only one brood in the season, and the young 
are able to follow their mother, on wing, by the 20th of June. The period 
at which these birds usually lay is about the 1st of April, but this varies 
according to latitude, and I believe that the very old birds breed earlier 
than the others. 
When the Boat-tailed Grakles breed on the tall reeds that border upon 
bayous or grow on the margins of lakes, especially in Louisiana and the 
Floridas, the cries of the young when they are nearly fledged frequently 
attract the attention of the alligator, which, well knowing the excellence 
of these birds as articles of food, swims gently towards the nest and sud- 
denly thrashing the reeds with his tail, jerks out the poor nestlings and 
immediately devours them. One or two such attacks so frighten the parent 
Grakles, that, as if of common accord, they utter a chuck, when the young 
scramble away among the reeds towards the shore, and generally escape 
from their powerful enemies. This species, the Red-winged Starling and 
the Crow Blackbird, ascend and descend the reeds with much celerity and 
ease, holding on by their feet. In that portion of East Florida called 
the “ Ever Glades,” the Boat-tailed Grakles frequently breed in company 
with the Little Bittern ( Ardea exilis), the Scolopaceous Courlan, and the 
Common Gallinule ; and when on trees, along with the Green Heron. 
