BY THE WAYSIDE 
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Every 
S CHOOL BRANCH D E PARTMENT 
Wisconsin School Branch is required to subscribe for at least one copy of BY THE WAYSIDE 
Letters to this department should be 
written on only one side of the page, should 
give name, age and address of the writer and 
should be mailed by the first of the month; Illi¬ 
nois writers sending to Miss Mary A. Hard¬ 
man, Academy of Sciences, Chicago, Ill., and 
Wisconsin writers to Mr. Roland E. Kremers, 
Madison, Wis. To each writer whosj letter 
is published will be sent an illustrated leaf¬ 
let on some bird. For the best letter each 
month we will send a second leaflet. Pre¬ 
ference will be given to letters about the 
bird study for the month and to original 
observations. 
Any Wisconsin society may, by paying 
the express, have the use of the Gordon and 
Merrill Libraries of bird books by applying 
to Mr. Kremers. 
Wisconsin parties should apply to the 
University Extension Division, Madison, for 
colored bird slides. Illinois Schools may use, 
without expense, a library or a lecture with 
lantern slides, by applying to Miss Bunnel, 
Academy of Sciences, Chicago. 
II ■----- 
The Bird of the Month 
The Bronzed Grackle 
The bronzed grackle is a common 
| bird in Wisconsin, but it is in the prai¬ 
rie regions to the west of ns that it 
finds its real home. Any wide-awake 
f hoy in Iowa or southern Minnesota 
will have among his bird experiences 
that of seeing a narrow line of chat- 
: tering black fellows, flowing like a 
stream across the sky to disappear in 
'! seme cornfield. That will have been 
i in August or perhaps early Septem¬ 
ber. I remember one such flight last¬ 
ing three or four hours, having as its 
destination a six hundred acre field of 
) corn. Boy-like we went in with shot 
guns and played great havoc, but on 
the mass of birds it barely had an ef¬ 
fect. They arose indeed in clouds but 
I only to alight again a little farther 
; on; the milky corn was too great a lux¬ 
ury to leave. 
It is on account of this gregarious 
habit and its love for corn that the 
grackle is much abased. But where I 
have known it to be most numerous, 
the farmer still waxed rich in raising 
corn, and, be it said to his credit, 
seemed on the whole not seriously in¬ 
clined to keep the grackle from his 
portion. 
And perhaps unwittingly the farmer 
is right. For this bronzy buccaneer, 
makes up on-third of his menu from 
insects, and most of them injurious. 
And when it comes to the babies—well 
nothing is too good for them, and to 
baby birds insects are the very best 
thing there is. And there seems little 
doubt that the grackle on the whole 
pays well for all the grain he gets. 
There may be, there probably are, 
times and places where the grackle 
must be disturbed to prevent it from 
doing too great damage. But unless 
such damage is perfectly apparent, let 
us give him that privilege of any other 
individual who stands accused—the 
benefit of the doubt. 
Gur grackle is bronzy, farther east 
he is purple, it is hard to say which. 
. 1 » 
is the handsomer. Both are worthy 
members of the family of Icteridae, a 
family that gives us the Redwing, 
Orioles, Bobolink, and Meadowlark. 
Is that not a family worth belonging 
to! But, like every other family, it 
has its black sheep in the Oowbird. 
Please Note 
To any teacher who will subscribe to 
By the Wayside for the purpose of 
teaching nature study, we shall send 
the following six illustrated leaflets: 
bobolink, mockingbird, killdeer, sharp- 
shinned hawk, house wren, bush tit. 
