RED-WINGED STARLING. 99 



'LOCATION. Found throughout the United 

 States in summer; late in the autumn, they mi- 

 grate south. 



RED-WINGED STARLING. 



THESE birds are very numerous in the United 

 States, and congregate in large flocks in the 

 spring and fall. And although they generally 

 migrate farther south, large numbers of them 

 winter in the Southern States, where, gleaning 

 among the stubble of the old rice and corn fields, 

 they find abundance of food for the winter. 

 Very early in the spring they come to us in 

 flocks, (the males first, as is generally the case 

 with migratory birds,) and in the neighborhood 

 of some pond, creek, or swampy meadow, they 

 may be seen in large bodies, performing their 

 aerial evolutions. At times they will all alight 

 on one or more leafless trees, covering them from 

 top to bottom. The contrast of their jet black 

 plumage, and scarlet shoulders, makes the ap- 

 pearance of the trees, then, strikingly beautiful; 

 while the combined notes of half a thousand or 

 more of them, wafted on the breeze, at some dis- 



