SPECIES 2. GRdCULI QUISC3Ld.



                   PURPLE GRAKLE.

                   [Plate XXI.-Fig. 4.]

La Fie de la Jamaiqtue, BrissoN, ii, 41.-BUFFON, iii, 97, Pl. Enl.
  538.-arct. Zool.p. 009, 1Ai. 154.-Grcaula purpureat, the les-
  ser Purple Jackdatw, or Crow Blackbird, BARTRAM, P. 291.-
  PEALE'S .Jkuseum, NJho. 1582.*

  THis noted depredator is well known to every farmer of the
northern and middle states. About the twentieth 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 prodigious num-
bers, as if to recompense the husbandman before hand for the
havock 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 of these trees they generally build their nests in
company, about the beginning or middle of April; some-
times ten or fifteen nests being on the same tree. One of these
nests, taken from a high pine tree, is now before me. It mea-
sures full five inches in diameter within, and four in depth; is
composed outwardly of mud, mixed with long stalks and roots
of a knotty kind of grass, and lined with fine bent and horse
hair. The eggs are five, of a bluish olive colour, marked with
large spots and straggling streaks of black and dark brown, also

  * We add the following synonymes: Boat-tailed Grakle, LATH. Gen. Syn. 1,
p?. 460, No. 5.-JAlaize-thieJ, KALx'S Travels.-Stunluts quiscala, DAUJiN,
2, P.
316.-Gracula barita, Journal .)cad. Wit. Sciences (f Philad. vol. 1, p. 254.-
QuLiscala versicolor' BONAPAIRTEs'S Ornitholqgy, volt , 1)). 42, Idp V, female.