"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."
"Yes," said the Doctor, "I call them Rusty Hinges, for their voices sound like the creaking of a door that needs oiling on the hinges. But in spite of this they try to sing to their mates in spring, and very funny is the sight and sound of their devotion. To judge only by their notes, they should belong to the Croaking Birds, and not to the Singers at all; but they have a regular music-box in the throat, only it is out of order, and won't play tunes. Like the Redwings, they also nest in colonies, either in old orchards, cedar thickets, or among pines; the rest of the year, too, they keep in flocks. Except in the most northerly States Crow Blackbirds stay all winter, like Crows themselves. They are not particularly likable birds, though you will find they have very interesting habits, if you take time to watch them."
"I wonder if you fed them with cod-liver oil and licorice lozenges if their voices would be better?" asked Dodo, who had suffered from a hoarse cold the winter before.
"I don't know what that treatment might do for them," laughed the Doctor; "but if you will agree to feed them I will give you the oil and licorice!" And then Dodo laughed at herself.
The Purple Grackle
Length twelve to thirteen and a half inches.
Male: glossy black, with soap-bubble tints on the head, back, tail, and wings, and yellow iris. A long tail that does not lie flat and smooth like that of most birds.