Length	12 to 13 inches
Male	Iridescent black, in which metallic violet, blue, copper, and green tints. The plumage of this grackle has iridescent bars. Iris of eye bright yellow and conspicuous. Tail longer than wings.
Female	Less brilliant black than male, and smaller.
Range	Gulf of Mexico to 57th parallel north latitude.
Migrations	Permanent resident in Southern States. Few are permanent throughout range. Migrates in immense flocks in March and September.

The Common Grackle, a "refined crow" (which is really no crow at all except in appearance) has scarcely more friends than a thief is entitled to; for, although in many sections of the country it has given up its old habit of stealing Indian corn and substituted ravages upon the grasshoppers instead, it still indulges a crow-like instinct for pillaging nests and eating young birds.

Traveling in immense flocks of its own kind, a gregarious bird of the first order, the grackle nevertheless is not the social fellow that its cousin, the red-winged blackbird, is. It especially holds aloof from mankind, and mankind reciprocates its suspicion.

The tallest, densest evergreens are not too remote for the Common Grackle to build its home, according to Dr. Abbott, though in other States than New Jersey, where he observed them, an old orchard often contains dozens of nests. One peculiarity of the grackles is that their eggs vary so much in coloring and markings that different sets examined in the same groups of trees are often wholly unlike.

The average groundwork, however, is soiled blue or greenish, waved, streaked, or clouded with brown. These are laid in a nest made of miscellaneous sticks and grasses, rather carefully constructed, and lined with mud. Another peculiarity is the bird's method of steering itself by its tail when it wishes to turn its direction or alight.

Peering at you from the top of a dark pine tree with its staring yellow eye, the grackle is certainly uncanny. There, very early in the spring, you may hear its cracked and wheezy whistle, for, being aware that however much it may look like a crow it belongs to another family, it makes a ridiculous attempt to sing. When a number of grackles lift up their voices at once, some one has aptly likened the result to a "good wheel-barrow chorus!" The grackle's mate alone appreciates his efforts as, standing on tiptoe, with half-spread wings and tail, he pours forth his craven soul to her through a disjointed larynx.

With all their faults, and they are numerous, let it be recorded of both crows and grackles are as devoted lovers as turtle-doves.

The Bronzed Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula aeneus) differs from the common grackle chiefly by the more brownish bronze tint of its plumage and its lack of iridescent bars. The bronzed grackle's range is more westerly, and in the southwest it is particularly common; but as a summer resident it finds its way to New England in large numbers. The call-note is louder and more metallic than the common grackle's call. In nearly all respects the habits of these two birds are identical.

FISH CROW
(Corvus ossifragus) Crow family

Length	14 to 16 inches
Male	Glossy black, with purplish-blue reflections, generally greener underneath. Chin naked.
Female	Like male.
Range	Along Atlantic coast and that of the Gulf of Mexico, northward to southern New England. Rare stragglers of the Pacific coast.
Migrations	March or April. September. Summer resident only at northern limit of range.

Compared with the Common crow, with which it is often confounded, the Fish Crow is of much smaller, more slender build. Thus its flight is less labored and more like a gull's, whose habit of catching fish that may be swimming near the surface of the water it sometimes adopts.

Both Audubon and Wilson, who first made this species known, record its habit of snatching food as it flies over the southern waters -- a rare practice in the north. The Fish Crows plumage, differs slightly from the Common Crow's in being a richer black everywhere, and particularly underneath, where the "corn thief" is dull.

However, it is the difference between the two crows' call-note that we chiefly depend upon to distinguish these confusing cousins. To say that the fish crow says car-r-r
instead of a loud, clear caw, means little until we have had an opportunity to compare its hoarse, cracked voice with the other bird's familiar call.

From the farmer's point of view, there is still another distinction: the fish crow lets his crops alone. It contents itself with picking up refuse on the shores of the sea or rivers not far inland; haunting the neighborhood of fishermen's huts for the small fish discarded when the seines are drawn, and treading out with its toes the shell-fish hidden in the sand at low tide. When we see it in the fields it is usually intent upon catching field-mice, grubs, and worms, with which it often varies its fish diet.

The Fish Crow is, however, the worst nest robber we have; it probably destroys ten times as many eggs and young birds as its larger cousin.

AMERICAN CROW
(Corvus americanus) Crow family
AKA: CORN THIEF; COMMON CROW

Length	16 to 17.50 inches
Male	Glossy black with violet reflections. Wings appear saw-toothed when spread, and almost equal the tail in length.
Female	Like male, except that the black is less brilliant.
Range	Throughout North America, from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico
Migrations	March. October. Summer and winter resident.

If we have an eye for the picturesque, we place a certain value upon the broad, strong dash of black color in the landscape, given by a flock of crows flapping their course above a corn-field, against an October sky; but the practical eye of the farmer looks only for his gun in such a case. To him the crow is an unmitigated nuisance, all the more maddening because it is clever enough to circumvent every means devised for its ruin.

Nothing escapes a crow's rapacity; fear is unknown to it. It migrates in broad daylight, chooses the most conspicuous perches, and yet its assurance is amply justified in its steadily increasing numbers.

In the very early spring, watch the friendly way in which the crow follows the plow, ingratiating itself by eating the larvae, field mice, and worms upturned in the furrows, for this is its one serviceable act throughout the year.

When the first brood of chickens is hatched, the crow's serious depredation begins. Not only the farmer's young fledglings, ducks, turkeys, and chicks, are snatched up and devoured, but the nests of song birds are made desolate, eggs being crushed and eaten on the spot, when there are no birds to carry off to the rickety, coarse nest in the high tree top in the woods.

Samuels claims to have seen a pair of crows visit an orchard and destroy the young in two robins' nests in half an hour. He calculates that two crows kill, in one day alone, young birds that in the course of the season would have eaten a hundred thousand insects. When, in addition to these atrocities, we remember the crow's depredations in the corn-field, it is small wonder that among the first laws enacted in New York State was one offering a reward for its head. But the more scientific agriculturists now concede that the crow is the farmer's true friend.

COMMON RAVEN
(Corvus corax principalis) Crow family
AKA: NORTHERN RAVEN; AMERICAN RAVEN

Length	26 to 27 inches
Male	Glossy black above, with purplish and greenish reflections. Duller underneath. Feathers of the throat and breast long and loose, like fringe.
Female	Like male.
Range	North America, from polar regions to Mexico. Rare along Atlantic coast and in the south. Common in the west, very abundant in the northwest.
Migrations	An erratic wanderer, usually resident where it finds its way.

The weird, uncanny voice of this great bird that soars in wide circles above the evergreen trees of dark northern forests seems to come out of the skies like the malediction of an evil spirit.

Without uttering the words of any language -- Poe's "Nevermore" was, of course, a poetic license -- people of all nationalities appear to understand that some dire calamity, some wicked portent, is being announced every time the un-birdlike creature utters its rasping call. The superstitious folk crow with an "I told you so," as they solemnly wag their heads when they hear, of some death in the village after "the bird of ill-omen" (Raven) has made an unwelcome visit to the neighborhood - The Raven receives the blame for every possible misfortune.

When seen in the air, the crow is the only other bird for which the raven could be mistaken; but the raven does more sailing and less flapping, and he delights in describing circles as he easily soars high above the trees. On the ground, he is seen to be a far larger bird than the largest crow. The curious beard or fringe of feathers on his breast at once distinguishes him.

These birds show the family instinct for living in flocks large and small, not of only ravens, but of any birds of their own genera. In the art of nest building they could instruct most of their relatives.

High up in evergreen trees or on the top of cliffs, never very near the seashore, they make a compact, symmetrical nest of sticks, neatly lined with grasses and wool from the sheep pastures, adding soft, comfortable linings to the old nest from year to year for each new brood.

When the young emerge from the eggs, which take many curious freaks of color and markings, they are pied black and white, suggesting the young of the western white-necked raven, a similarity which, so far as plumage is concerned, they quickly outgrow. Ravens acquire early on in life the fortunate habit of eating whatever their parents set before them -- grubs, worms, grain, field-mice; anything, in fact, for the raven is a conspicuously omnivorous bird.

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