Notes on the Birds. 361 



occurs as a iui|Lfrai)t. Itiit 1 have no dclinilc < 

 several larjj;(' flocks Ocloher I'd. issc, u\u\ stil 

 ahtiiK the ohl canal, iiortli of Terre Ilaiile. 



lliG. Ql ist'ALi s ciiisci i,A .K.NKis I i i(l;;\\ a v. 



An aliuudaiit summer resident, Imt imich less coininon than it was ."!() to 

 uO years agu. 



In Monroe County, very aliund.-iiil alxmt r.l(>niiiiii<;ton. nesting in the pine' 

 trees in tlie yards; a few doubtless remain all winter some years. 



Very common in Vigo ("oiuity along the river, also nesting in the pine 

 trees in Terre Haute. March JO and 11. 188S, more than 100 seen. 



In Carroll County, very abundant. May 21, 1SS8, nests with large young 

 in the Maple swamp. March 1."). 1SS4. llrst of season seen at the Jacob 

 Xettle farm southwest of ("aiiiden : very coiiiiuon a few days later. .March 

 l*r». 1885, .saw several, the Hist of the season, soon became common. 



Thirty to 40 years ago this region was heavily wooded. A more magnifi- 

 cent hardwood forest than that which covered the Wabash valley, the world 

 has never seen; great oaks of several .species, splendid maples, ashes and 

 elms, each of .several species, stately black walnuts, yellow poplars and 

 sycamores, beautiful beeches and buckeyes, and a score or more of other 

 hardwood trees, with a dense underbrush of smaller trees, shrubs and 

 vines, and yet under these, tangled thickets of spice-brush, button-bush, wild 

 roses, briars, and other smaller growth of many kinds. And lavishly dis-' 

 tributed through these umbrageous forests were hun<lreds of small ponds, 

 many of them only a few yards or rods, and none more than half a mile in 

 length or width. Many of them, indeed, were mere wet-weather ixmds which 

 dried up late in suunner or early fall, while others were more permanent and 

 held more or less water throughout the year. Besides these there were many 

 swamps, large or small, which furnished excellent breeding and roosting 

 groiuids for vast nundiers of crow blackbirds and red-shouldered blackbirds. 

 The crow blackbirds made their nests in the trees and snags, placing them in 

 the forks of the larger limbs, on the tops of snags, in decayed places in the 

 trunks, and sometimes even in hollows in the trunks or larger limbs. The 

 height of the nests above the ground varied from a few to many feet. I 

 have seen a nest on the top of a stump not two feet above the water, and 

 another fully 50 feet from the ground in the crotch of a swamp maple. 



In those days millions of crow blackbirds were hatched and grew to 

 maturity in and about these swamps and ponds. Hundreds of thousands 

 came up from the south every spring, built their nests and reared millions 

 of young. It is not believed these figures are at all extravagant. The enor- 

 mous ninnbers were never more noticeable than during roasting-ear time, 

 when the green corn was in the milk, sweet and tooth.some. Then the vast 

 hosts, old and young, would make daily invasions of the cornfields, settling 

 down on the ears as did the locusts on ancient Egypt, or as do their relatives 

 our grasshoppers, on the fields of Kansas. 



So great was the <lamage done to the corn that the farmers made every 

 effort to drive the birds away. One of the duties of the farmers' boys 

 was to keep the blackbirds out of the cornfields, which the boys attempted 

 to do by making all sorts of noises, such as .shouting, calling, throwing 



