332 
RUSTY GRAKLE. 
forming them with moss and grass, and lay five eggs of a dark 
colour, spotted with black. It is added, they gather in great 
flocks, and retire southerly in September.* 
The male of this species, when in perfect plumage, is nine 
inches in length, and fourteen in extent ; at a small distance 
appears wholly black ; but, on a near examination, is of a 
glossy dark green ; the irides of the eye are silvery, as in those 
of the Purple Grakle ; the bill is black, nearly of the same 
form with that of the last mentioned species ; the lower man- 
dible a little rounded, with the edges turned inward, and the 
upper one furnished with a sharp bony process on the inside, 
exactly like that of the purple species. The tongue is slender, 
and lacerated at the tip ; legs and feet, black and strong, the 
hind claw the largest ; the tail is slightly rounded. This is 
the colour of the male when of full age ; but three-fourths of 
these birds which we meet with, have the whole plumage of 
the 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 ferruginous. 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 colour ; 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 con- 
finement. 
Arctic Zoology , p. 259. 
