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354 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
however, is directed to the Indian corn in all its progressive stages. 
As soon as the infant blade of this grain begins to make its appear- 
ance above ground, the Grakles hail the welcome signal with 
screams of peculiar satisfaction; and, without waiting for a formal 
invitation from the proprietor, descend on the fields, and begin to 
pull up and regale themselves on the seed, scattering the green 
blades around. While thus eagerly employed, the vengeance of the 
gun sometimes overtakes them; but these disasters are soon forgot- 
ten, and those — 
‘Who live to get away, 
Return to steal, another day.’ 
About the beginning of August, when the young ears are in their 
milky state, they are attacked with redoubled eagerness by the 
Grakles and Redwings, in formidable and combined bodies. They 
descend like a blackening, sweeping tempest on the corn, dig off 
the external covering of twelve or fifteen coats of leaves as dex- 
terously as if done by the hand of man, and, having laid bare the 
ear, leave little behind to the farmer but the cobs and shrivelled 
skins that contained their favorite fare. I have seen fields of corn 
of many acres, where more than one-half was thus ruined.” 
About the last week in September, these birds, in im- 
mense flocks, depart on their southern migration: so abun- 
dant are they at that time, and so closely do they fly 
together in a flock, that I have killed, at one discharge of 
my gun, over a dozen birds. They visit the beech woods, 
and also the oak groves, and feed upon the nuts found 
on and beneath those trees. They also eat the seeds of 
weeds and various wild plants, as I have proved by examin- 
ing the stomachs of different specimens. 
In the evidence before the Committee on Agriculture, in 
the session of Massachusetts Legislature, for 1869 and ’70, 
it appeared, from the testimony of numerous observers, that 
the Crow Blackbird, or Grakle, destroys, in the breeding 
season of the smaller birds, great numbers of eggs and 
young birds, eating them after the manner of the jays and 
crows. !have not observed this fact myself, but on inquiry 
find from different observers that such is often the habit of 
this species. 
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