59 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 
United States in summer, whose food, being nearly the 
same, would swell the amount of vermin destroyed to 
12,000,000,000. But the number of young birds may be 
fairly estimated at double that of their parents; and as 
these are constantly fed on larvee for three weeks, making 
only the same allowance for them as for the older ones, 
their share would amount to 42,000,000,000, making a 
grand total of 54,000,000,000 of noxious insects destroyed 
in the space of four months by this single species! The 
combined ravages of such a hideous host of vermin would 
be sufficient to spread famine and desolation over a wide 
extent of the richest, best-cultivated country on the earth.” 
The yellow-headed blackbird, a kinsman of larger size, 
belongs properly north-west of Lake Superior, bat frequent- 
ly gets into Michigan and Illinois. The bright yellow head 
and neck make it very noticeable if seen. Its habits are 
essentially those of the redwing. 
We have another set of blackbirds in the Atlantic States, 
of greater size than the Agee, commonly known as “crow ” 
blackbirds, but called grakles in the books. There are sev- 
eral species, but none are greatly different from that too- 
common pest of our cornfields, the purple grakle. 
The real home of the grakles, although along the edges of 
the swamps, is not among the reeds where the redwing and 
