48 C. If. Merriam — Birds of Connecticut. 



at about the distance of a musket-shot in another part of the field, 

 and always changed their place when their enemy approached. They 

 tired the sportsinan, before he could drive them off the maize, though 

 he killed a great many of them at every shot. They likewise eat the 

 seeds of the aquatic tare-grass (Zizania aguatica) commonly late in 

 autumn, after the maize is got in. I am told, they likewise eat buck- 

 wheat, and oats. Some people say, that they even eat wheat, barley, 

 and rye, when pressed by hunger ; yet, from the best information I 

 could obtain, they have not been found to do any damage to these species 

 of corn. In spring, they sit in numbers on the trees, near the farms; 

 and their note is pretty agreeable. As they are so destructive to 

 maize, the odium of the inhabitants against them is carried so far, 

 that the laws of Pennsylvania and Hew Jersey have settled a pre- 

 mium of three pence a dozen for dead maize-thie\es. In Neic Eng- 

 land^ the people are still greater enemies to them; for Dr. Franklin 

 told me, in the spring of the year 1750, that, by means of the pre- 

 miums which have been settled for killing them in Nev^ England, they 

 have been so extii'pated, tliat they are very rarely seen, and in a few 

 places only, liut as, in the summer of the year 1749, an immense 

 quantity of worms appeared on the meadows, which devoured the 

 grass, and did great damage, the people have abated their enmity 

 against the maize-thieves ; for they thought they had observed that 

 those birds lived chiefly on these worms l)efore the maize is ripe, and 

 consequently extirpated them, or at least prevented their sjireading 

 too muel). They seem therefore to be entitled, as it were, to a 

 reward for their trouble."f 



Note. — The Boat-tailed Grackle ( Quiscahis major, Vieillot) has 

 been accredited to New England by Linsley and others, but an 

 imusually large Crow Blackbird was probably mistaken for it.* 



Family, CORVID^. 



116. CorvUS Americanus Audubon. Common Crow. 



An abundant resident ; generally lays five eggs and sometimes six 

 (Coe). On the 25th of January, 1875, I saw a fiock of several hun- 

 dred Crows near New Haven. " It is related of a certain ancient 

 philosopher, walking along the sea-shore to gather shells, that one of 



* Teter Kalm's Travels into North America, vol. ii, pp. 73-78. 1771. 

 f See Coues' Birds of the Northwest, p. 204. 1874. 



