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narily brooded by the female.” It is said that after the young once leave 
the nest they are never brooded again, and they never return to the nest, 
although they may be fed by their parents for two or three weeks longer. 
Sometimes meadowlarks, red-wings, and yellow-heads have second nest- 
ings, and cowbirds are known to lay eggs as late as July. Bobolinks, 
orioles, and grackles seem to be content with one brood. 
“The Icteridae belong cniefiy to tropical South America and the adja- 
cent islands. Nearly one hundred and fifty species are known, of which by 
far the greater number are represented only in South America. Eighteen 
species occur north of Mexico. Of these, most are highly gregarious, 
assembling in large flocks, the sexes separately, and migrating.” 
GRACKLES 
“Three of the four races of grackles or crow-blackbirds found in eastern 
North America are so alike in habits and haunts that, with some slight 
allowance for differences in habitats north and south, the same observations 
apply to all of them. The bronze grackle is the grackle of eastern Canada 
and of the northern United States east of the Rockies. The Florida purple 
grackle is of the South Atlantic coast and west near the Gulf to Texas, and 
tne purple grackle is of the Middle Atlantic coast region east of the 
Alleghenies. As a species the grackle nests over most of temperate North 
America, east of the Rockies, and winters in the southern part of its range.” 
The grackle is one of the three or four most common lawn birds, the 
others being the robin, the flicker, and the starling. The glossy black male 
grackles with their strikingly iridescent feathers are handsome birds. Some- 
times when the sun shines upon them one marvels at their beauty, but a 
slight change of position makes them appear just ordinary black birds. 
The male bronzed grackle ordinarily has a head of the color of blued 
steel, but I once saw one of a fiock that had a brassy green head. (Pos- 
sibly he was a purple grackle, though it was in Kansas that I saw him.) 
The body is of metallic seal-bronze. His mate closely resembles him though 
she has somewhat less color. The male purple grackle’s head, neck, and 
chest vary in color from metallic reddish-violet to golden green. The 
general color effect of the bird as a whole is that he is purple, but green 
and blue and blue-bronze, etc., appear in his plumage. The female bird is 
decidedly smaller than the male and much duller in color. Florida purple 
grackles have dull greenish backs. All of the grackles have whitish eyes. 
A point in favor of grackles is that they are harbingers of spring. On 
a chilly, windy day in March a flock of grackles whirs into the top of some 
tall, lone, leafless tree and sends out a “squeaky wheel-barrow” chorus to 
announce that they — and spring — are at hand. As Donald Culross 
Peattie has said, “the airs would be lonelier without their gabbling and 
mockery and the sweet squeak and gurgle as of an old mill wheel in a 
stream.” Later they walk sturdily about the lawns and other open places 
eating whatever may be available, for they are birds of omnivorous appetites. 
Grackles seem to prefer to nest in coniferous trees, but when these are 
not present they make use of other trees or shrubs. The nest is a large, 
