wards the middle of that month they begin to sheer off towards the south. The lower parts of Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, are the winter residences of these flocks. Here numerous bodies, collecting together from all quarters of the interior and northern districts, and darkening the air with their numbers, sometimes form one congregated multitude of many hundred thousands. A few miles from the banks of the Roanoke, on the twentieth of January, I met with one of those prodigious armies of Grakles. They rose from the surrounding fields with a noise like thunder, and descending on the length of road before me, covered it and the fences completely with black; and when they again rose, and after a few evolutions descended on the skirts of the high timbered woods, at that time destitute of leaves, they produced a most singular and striking effect; the whole trees for a considerable extent, from the top to the lowest branches, seeming as if hung in mourning; their notes and screaming the meanwhile resembling the distant sound of a great cataract, but in more musical cadence, swelling and dying away on the ear according to the fluctuation of the breeze. In Kentucky, and all along the Mississippi, from its junction with the Ohio to the Balize, I found numbers of these birds, so that the Purple Grakle may be considered as a very general inhabitant of the territory of the United States.

Every industrious farmer complains of the mischief committed on his corn by the Crow Blackbirds, as they are usually called; though were the same means used, as with pigeons, to take them in clap-nets, multitudes of them might thus be destroyed; and the products of them in market, in some measure, indemnify him for their depredations. But they are most numerous and most destructive at a time when the various harvests of the husbandman demand all his attention, and all his hands to cut, cure, and take in; and so they escape with a few sweeps made among them by some of the younger boys, with the gun; and by the gunners from the neighbouring towns and villages; and return from their winter quarters, sometimes early in March, to renew the like scenes over again. As some

consolation, however, to the industrious cultivator, I can assure him, that were I placed in his situation, I should hesitate whether to consider these birds most as friends or enemies, as they are particularly destructive to almost all the noxious worms, grubs, and caterpillars, that infest his fields, which, were they allowed to multiply unmolested, would soon consume nine-tenths of all the production of his labour, and desolate the country with the miseries of famine! Is not this another striking proof that the Deity has created nothing in vain; and that it is the duty of man, the lord of the creation, to avail himself of their usefulness, and guard against their bad effects as securely as possible, without indulging in the barbarous, and even impious, wish for their utter extermination?

The Purple Grakle is twelve inches long, and eighteen in extent; on a slight view seems wholly black, but placed near, in a good light, the whole head, neck, and breast, appear of a rich glossy steel blue, dark violet and silky green; the violet prevails most on the head and breast, and the green on the hind part of the neck; the back, rump, and whole lower parts, the breast excepted, reflect a strong coppery gloss; wing-coverts, secondaries, and coverts of the tail, rich light violet, in which the red prevails; the rest of the wings, and cuneiform tail, are black, glossed with steel blue. All the above colours are extremely shining, varying as differently exposed to the light; iris of the eye silvery; bill more than an inch long, strong, and furnished on the inside of the upper mandible with a sharp process, like the stump of the broken blade of a penknife, intended to assist the bird in masticating its food; tongue thin, bifid at the end, and lacerated along the sides.

The female is rather less; has the upper part of the head, neck and the back, of a dark sooty brown; chin, breast, and belly, dull pale brown, lightest on the former; wings, tail, lower parts of the back and vent, black, with a few reflections of dark green; legs, feet, bill, and eyes, as in the male.

The Purple Grakle is easily tamed, and sings in confinement. VOL. I.-3 H

They have also, in several instances, been taught to articulate some few words pretty distinctly.

A singular attachment frequently takes place between this bird and the Fish-Hawk. The nest of this latter is of very large dimensions, often from three to four feet in breadth, and from four to five feet high; composed, externally, of large sticks, or faggots, among the interstices of which sometimes three or four pairs of Crow Blackbirds will construct their nests, while the Hawk is sitting, or hatching above. Here each pursues the duties of incubation, and of rearing their young; living in the greatest harmony, and mutually watching and protecting each other's property from depredators.

NOTE-The Gracula quiscala of the tenth edition of the Systema Naturæ was established upon Catesby's Purple Jackdaw. This bird is common in Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, where it is still known by the name of Jackdaw; whereas the Purple Grakle of Wilson is called Blackbird, or Crow Blackbird. The latter is also common in the States south of Virginia; but the Jackdaw, after rearing its young, retires further south on the approach of Winter; whereas the Purple Grakle hyemates in the southern section of our union, and migrates, in the spring, to the middle and northern states, to breed. The female of the Crow Blackbird is dark sooty-brown and black; the female of the Jackdaw, is "all over brown," agreeably to Catesby's description. This author states the weight of the Jackdaw to be six ounces: the weight of the Crow Blackbird seldom exceeds four ounces and a half. That the two species have been confounded there is no doubt; and it is not easy to disembroil the confusion into which they have been thrown by naturalists, who have never had an opportunity of visiting the native regions of both. It is evident that Catesby thought there was but one species of these birds in Carolina, otherwise he would have discovered, that those which he observed, during the winter, in great flocks, were different from his Jackdaws, which is the proper summer resident of that State, although it is probable that some of the

Crow Blackbirds are also indigenous. The true Gracula barita of Linnæus is not yet satisfactorily ascertained; the Boat-tailed Grakle of Latham's General Synopsis, is unquestionably the Purple Grakle of Wilson. The best figures of the Purple Jackdaw which we have seen, are those given in Bonaparte's Ornithology, vol. 1, pl. 4. They were drawn by Mr. Alexander Rider of Philadelphia, (not by Mr. Audubon, as is stated,) from specimens brought from East Florida, by Mr. Titian Peale and myself.-G. Ord.

Cuculus Americanus, LINN. Syst. ed. 10, p. 111-Catesb. 1, 9.— LATH. 1, 537.-Le Coucou de la Caroline. BRISS. IV, 112.Arct. Zool. 265, No. 155.-PEALE's Museum, No. 1778.

A STRANGER who visits the United States for the purpose of examining their natural productions, and passes through our woods in the month of May or June, will sometimes hear, as he traverses the borders of deep, retired, high timbered hollows, an uncouth guttural sound or note, resembling the syllables kowe, kowe, kowe kowe kowe! beginning slowly, but ending so rapidly, that the notes seem to run into each other, and vice versa; he will hear this frequently without being able to discover the bird or animal from which it proceeds, as it is both shy and solitary, seeking always the thickest foliage for concealment. This is the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, the subject of the present account. From the imitative sound of its note, it is known in many parts by the name of the Cow-bird; it is also called in Virginia the Rain-Crow, being observed to be most clamorous immediately before rain.

This species arrives in Pennsylvania, from the south, about the twenty-second of April, and spreads over the country as far at least as lake Ontario; is numerous in the Chickasaw and Chactaw nations; and also breeds in the upper parts of Georgia; preferring in all these places the borders of solitary swamps,

* This genus has been considerably restricted by recent ornithologists, The two species referred by Wilson to their genus belong to the genus Coccycus of Vicillot, adopted by Temminck.