Identifier: birdsofnewenglan00sam (find matches)
Title: The birds of New Englandand adjacent states: containing descriptions of the birds of New England ... together with a history of their habitats ... ; with illustrations of many species of the birds, and accurate figures of their eggs
Year: 1870 (1870s)
Authors: Samuels, Edward Augustus, 1836-1908
Subjects: Birds Birds Birds
Publisher: Boston : Noyes, Holmes
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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y occasionally visit oldcornfields and stubble-fields, where they catch grasshoppersand other insects, and eat the seed of weeds and such grainsas are left by the farmer after harvesting. They remain in southern New England until early inNovember. QUISCALUS, ViEiLLOT. Quiscalus, Vieillot, Analyse (1816). (Gray.) (Type Gracula quiscala, L.)Bill as long as the head, the culmen slightly curved, the gonys almost straight;the edges of the bill inflected and rounded; the commissure quite stronglysinuated;outlines of tarsal scutellag well defined on the sides; wings shorter than the tail,sometimes much more so; tail long, the feathers conspicuously and decidedly gradu-ated. Colors black. QUISCALUS VERSICOLOR— rieilht.The Crow Blackbird; Purple Grakle. Gracula quiscala, Linnasus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 165. Wils. Am. Om., III.(1811) 44. Quiscalus versicolor, Vieillot. Analyse? (1816). lb., Nouv. Diet., XXVIIL(1819) 488. Nutt. Man., I. (1832) 194. Aud. Orn. Biog., I. (1831) 35; V. (1838) 481.
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Ckow Blac;kiiiim>, Quiscalus versicolor. VieilloL THE CROW BLACKBIRD. 353 Description. Bill above, about as long as the head, more than twice as long as high; the com-missure moderately sinuated and considerably decurved at tip; tail a little shorterthan the wing, much graduated, the lateral feathers one and ten one-hundredthsinches shorter; third quill longest, first between fourth and fifth; head and neck allwell defined steel-blue; the rest of the body with varied reflections of bronze,golden, green, copper, and purple, the latter most conspicuous on the tail, the tailcoverts, and wings; the edges of primaries and of tail greenish. Female similar,but smaller and duller, with perhaps more green on the head. Iris, j-ellow. Length, thirteen inches; wings, six; tail, five and eighty one-hundredths; billabove, one and twenty-five one-himdredths inches. This very common and well-known bird is distributedthroughout New England in the summer season; arrivingabout the first week in April

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