the husks."

[Illustration: Red-winged Blackbird.]


The Red-winged Blackbird

Length nine and a half inches.

Male: glossy black, except the scarlet shoulders, edged with buff.
Female: mixed rusty black and buff, with dull reddish-orange
shoulders--not conspicuous.

A Citizen of North America in general.

A member of the guilds of Ground Gleaners and Tree Trappers.


THE PURPLE GRACKLE

(THE CROW BLACKBIRD. RUSTY HINGE)

"What a noise those Blackbirds are making!" said Nat.

"That's nothing to the way they do early in the spring, or in autumn,
after they are through nesting," said Rap. "You should hear them. They
come to a big chestnut across the road from our house, more than a
hundred of them at once, and they creak and crackle and squeak till all
of a sudden down they go on the ground, and walk about awhile to feed."