148 INSESSORES. 



the root of the plant, however, being perennial, they 

 do not exterminate it. 



Audubon says they do not confine themselves to 

 the Cockle Bur exclusively, but attack all kinds of 

 fruit indiscriminately, on which account they are al- 

 ways unwelcome visitors to the planter. They are 

 particularly destructive to the grain-stacks, upon 

 which they alight in numbers sufficient almost to 

 cover it, pulling out the straws and scattering it 

 about, thus wasting as much as they eat. While thus 

 occupied, the farmer has a good opportunity of taking 

 vengeance upon them for their unwarrantable intru- 

 sion. When once fired upon, all the survivors will 

 rise, shriek, fly around a few minutes, and then alight 

 again upon the same spot. The gun being kept 

 vigorously at work, almost the entire flock is some- 

 times destroyed. At each discharge, the living birds 

 fly over their slain or wounded companions, shrieking 

 as loudly as ever, but still returning to the stack to 

 receive their measure of what the farmer would call 

 retributive justice. 



These birds roost in companies, occupying the 

 large cavities which are found in the sycamore trees, 

 clinging to the sides of the hole as close together as 

 they can crowd, hanging on with their bill and claws. 

 They can scarcely be said to have any nests, their 

 eggs being laid upon a few pieces of rotten wood at 

 the bottom of the holes in which they roost. 



Alexander Wilson, that accurate and beautiful 

 ornithological writer, gives such an interesting ac- 

 count of one of these birds, which he kept for some 



