454 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 



follows: "They blacken the fields 



and crowd the air. The bare trees ^^.^:r:::-^^-^— 



on which they alight are foliaged by /'^"^^^ ^' -;'~,^:;v. 



them. Their incessant jingling songs ^^"^ 



drown the music of the Meadowlarks 



and produce a dreamy far-away effect ,,.. , ^^' ]^\, , . . , 



/ . , r J- J. i 1 • 1 1 n » Wing of Rusty Blackbird. 



as ot myriads of distant sleigh bells 



(Birds of Manitoba, p. 581). During their spring visit in Michigan the 

 food seems to consist entirely of weed-seeds, waste grain, and such insects 

 and other scraps of animal life as they can pick up in the marshes and 

 around the edges of ponds and streams. They are specially fond of damp 

 places and are continually wading in the shallow edges of pools and streams, 

 apparently never so happy as when their feet are wet. In autumn they 

 frequent stubble fields, corn fields and sometimes the beech woods, feeding 

 on practically the same substances as in spring, though probably with a 

 larger proportion of insects. The examination of 132 stomachs by the 

 Department of Agriculture at Washington shows a larger proportion of 

 animal matter (53 percent) than in any other American blackbird except 

 the Bobolink. They eat immense numbers of water-beetles and their 

 larvffi (which probably have no economic importance), but they also eat 

 snout-beetles, leaf-beetles, May-beetles and numerous other Coleoptera, 

 most of which are harmful. In autumn grasshoppers form a very large 

 part of their food, amounting to nearly 40 percent. They eat but little 

 wheat, oats or corn, except waste in the fields, and it is not probable that 

 they pull up sprouting grain, although this has been alleged. On the whole 

 this species is at least as beneficial as harmful, and probably has a large 

 margin to its credit on the beneficial side. 



As already stated, it is not known to nest within our limits, and the only 

 record at hand of a nest in this latitude is the statement that one was 

 found at Storr's Lake, near Milton, Wisconsin, in June 1861 (Kumlien and 

 HoUister, Birds of Wisconsin, p. 89). We are also informed by Mr. F. C. 

 Hubel of Detroit, that he and Mr. Kay found a pair feeding young, near 

 Cobalt, Nipissing district, Ont., in the summer of 1905. According to 

 Job it breeds abundantly on the Magdalene Islands, in the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, where it nests like the Robin, "low down in spruces, usually 

 near the ends of thick boughs" (Auk, XVIII, 1901, 200). 



The eggs are described by Bendire as light bluish-green, blotched and 

 spotted with different shades of chocolate and chestnut-brown and lighter 

 shades of ecru, drab and pearl-gray. The eggs are four or five in a set, 

 and average .99 by .73 inches. 



TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 



Adult male: In spring, glossy greenish black all over, sometimes (usually) with very 

 narrow whitish or rusty edgings on a few featliers, particularly the under tail-coverts; in 

 autumn, black, all the feathers of the forward half of tlie bird margined more or less strongly 

 with buff, rusty, or chestnut, most heavily on the top of head amd interscapular region; 

 bill and feet black, iris straw-yellow. 



Adult female: In spring, uniform slate-color, with scanty buffy or rusty edgings, which 

 are remnants of the winter plumage; in autumn, similar, but with the slate-color overlaid 

 on head, breast and back with rusty brown or even chestnut; often a conspicuous light stripe 

 extending backward from above the eye. Young are similar to the adult female at first, 

 but the males soon show much blacker wings and tail. 



Length 8.20 to 9.75 inches; wing 4.25 to 4.75; tail 3.65 to 4.20; culmen .70 to .80. 



