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BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, ETC. 
Nest. — A coarse and bulky but compact structure of dried grasses, 
built in trees (often cavities). Eggs: 3 to 7, pale green or greenish blue, 
olive or olive whitish, coarsely spotted and irregularly lined with brown 
and black. 
Food. — Largely noxious insects, corn, and the small grains. 
The bronzed grackles may be seen as far west as the eastern base 
of the RockyMountains. Like all the grackles they spend a good 
share of their time on the ground walking over the grass, turning 
their heads this way and that, when the sun glances from their hand¬ 
some bronzy backs. When they fly their tails turn into rudders, and 
they move along with as straight and steady a course as a skill¬ 
fully guided boat. Their gurgling, squeaky notes cannot be called 
musical, but have a crisp spring sound, and their clatter has a 
hearty social ring as they fill a treetop or scatter over a park lawn. 
Although they do considerable damage when descending in hordes 
on grain fields, their steady work through the year balances on the 
right side, for they are not only assiduous in following the plough 
for grubs, but devote themselves largely to catching grasshoppers, 
crickets, locusts, and other destructive insects. 
Subgenus Megaquiscalus 
513a. Quiscalus major macrourus (Swains.). Great-tailed 
Grackle: Jackdaw. 
Adult male. — Head, neck, and breast purple, changing through steel 
blue to greenish on belly and back. Adult female : under parts hair brown ; 
head dark brown, darkening on back to blackish, glossed with green and 
purple. Immature male (first year): upper parts black, more or less 
glossed with bluish green; under parts sooty black. Young: like adult 
female, but browner, without gloss above, more buffy below. Male: 
length (skins) 15.50-18.00, wing 7.25-7.83, tail 7.70-9.25, bill 1.56-1.89. 
Female: length (skins) 11.20-14.00, wing 5.60-6.24, tail 5.08-6.50, bill 
1.33-1.55. 
Distribution. — Southern Texas and south through Mexico (west to edge 
of plateau) to northern South America. 
Nest. — Bulky, made largely of dried grass and Spanish moss, usually 
with an inside coating of mud; built in low trees or bushes, often in 
swampy places, sometimes in towns. Eggs : 3 to 5, pale bluish or green¬ 
ish, drab, olive, or purplish gray, grotesquely marked with brown and 
black lines. 
Food. — Insects and their larvse, crustaceans, dead fish, seeds, and 
grain. 
The jackdaws, as the grackles are called in southern Texas, nest 
in the ‘ oak motts ’ of the shin oak prairie between Corpus Christi 
and Brownsville. We found them building the last of April at San 
Ignatia mott, an oasis-like grove in the middle of the prairie. They 
made the noisiest blackbird colony one could wish to camp below ; 
and when to their squeaking clangor and hubbub was added the 
