THE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. \\\ 



On the winter history of this bird in the Southern States, 

 Wilson has a very fine paragraph: "The Red-winged Star- 

 lings, though generally migratory in the states north of 

 Maryland, are found during winter in immense, flocks some- 

 times associated with the Purple Grakles, and often by 

 themselves, along the whole lower parts of Virginia, both 

 Carolinas, Georgia and Louisiana, particularly near the sea- 

 coast, and in the vicinity of large rice and corn fields. In 

 the months of January and February, while passing through 

 the former of these countries, I was frequently entertained 

 with the aerial evolutions of these great bodies of Starlings. 

 Sometimes they appeared driving about like an enormous 

 black cloud carried before the wind, varying its shape every 

 moment; sometimes suddenly rising from the fields around 

 me vv^ith a noise like thunder; while the glittering of innu- 

 merable wings of the brightest vermilion amid the black 

 cloud they formed produced on these occasions a very 

 striking and splendid effect. Then, descending like a tor- 

 rent, and covering the branches of some detached grove, or 

 clump of trees, the whole congregated multitude commenced 

 one general concert or chorus, that I have plainly distin- 

 guished at the distance of more than two miles, and, when 

 listened to at the intermediate space of about a quarter of a 

 mile, with a slight breeze of wind to swell and soften the 

 flow of its cadences, was to me grand, and even sublime. 

 The whole season of winter that, with most birds, is passed 

 in struggling to sustain life in silent melancholy, is, with the 

 Red-wings, one continued carnival. The profuse gleanings 

 of the old rice, corn, and buckwheat fields supply them with 

 abundant food, at once ready and nutritious; and the inter- 

 mediate time is spent either in aerial maneuvers or in 

 grand vocal performances, as if solicitous to supply the 

 absence of all the tuneful summer tribes, and to cheer the 



