PURPLE GRAKLE. 
227 
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 ; hut 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 ferru- 
ginous. 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 confinement. 
57 . QGISCALUS VERSICOLOR^ VIEILL. — GRACULA QUISCA LA, WILS. 
PURPLE GRAKLE. 
WILSON, PLATE XXI. FIG. IV -MALE. 
This noted depredator is well known to every care- 
ful farmer of the northern and middle states. About the 
20th 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 prodi- 
gious numbers, as if to recompense the husbandman 
beforehand for the havoc 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 
