Note 14 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS.

A species of birds, called by the Swedes, maize-thieves, do the greatest mischief in this country. They have given them that name, because they eat maize, both publicly and secretly, just after it is sown and covered with the ground, and when it is ripe. The English call them blackbirds. There are two species of them, both described and drawn by Catesby14. Though they are very different in species, yet there is so great a friendship between them, that they frequently accompany each other in mixed flocks. However, in Pensylvania, the first sort are more obvious, and often fly together, without any of the red-winged stares. The first sort, or the purple daws, bear, in many points, so great a likeness to the daw, the stare, and the thrush, that it is difficult to determine to which genus they are to be reckoned, but seem to come nearest to the stare; for the bill is exactly the same with that of the thrush, but the tongue, the flight, their sitting on the trees, their song and shape, make it entirely a stare; at a distance they look almost black, but close by they have a very blue or purple cast, but not so much as Catesby’s print: their size is that of a stare; the bill is conic, almost subulated, strait, convex, naked at the base, black, with almost equal mandibles, the upper being only a very little longer than the lower; the nostrils are oblong, yet a little angulated, so as to form almost squares; they are placed obliquely at the base of the bill, and have no hair; there is a little horny knob, or a small prominence on the upper side of them; the tongue is sharp and bifid at the point; the iris of the eyes is pale; the forehead, the crown, the nucha, the upper part and the sides of the neck are of an obscure blue and green shining colour; the sides of the head under the eyes are obscurely blue; all the back and coverts of the wings are purple; the upper coverts of the tail are not of so conspicuous a purple colour, but as it were blackened with soot; the nine primary quill-feathers are black; the other secundary ones are likewise black, but their outward margin is purple; the twelve tail feathers have a blackish purple colour, and their tips are round; those on the outside are the shortest, and the middle extremely long. When the tail is spread, it looks round towards the extremity. The throat is blueish green, and shining; the breast is likewise black or shining green, according as you turn it to the light; the belly is blackish, and the vent feathers are obscurely purple-coloured; the parts of the breast and belly which are covered by the wings, are purple-coloured; the wings are black below, or rather sooty; and the thighs have blackish feathers; the legs (tibiæ), and the toes are of a shining black. It has four toes, as most birds have. The claws are black, and that on the back toe is longer than the rest. Dr. Linnæus calls this bird Gracula Quiscula.