320 USEFUL BIRDS. 



caterpillars ; and should there be an outbreak of canker- 

 worms in the orchard, the Blackbirds will fly at least half a 

 mile to get cankerworms for their young. AVilson estimated 

 that the lled-wings of the United States would in four months 

 destroy sixteen thousand, two hundred million larva?. 



They eat the cater})illars of the gipsy 

 moth, the forest tent caterpillar, and 

 other hairy larvoe. They are among the 

 most destructive birds to weevils, click 

 beetles, and wireworms. Grasshoppers, 

 ants, bugs, and flies form a portion of 

 Pig. 143. - Red-winged the Rcd-wiugs' food. The}' eat com- 

 niackbird, female, about parativcly little ffraiu in Massachusetts, 



one-liall natural size. %. j ts ' 



although they get some from newly sown 

 fields in spring, as well as from the autumn harvest ; but 

 they feed very largely on the seeds of weeds and wild rice 

 in the fall. In the south they join with the Bobolink in 

 devastating the rice fields, and in the west they are often so 

 numerous as to destroy the grain in the fields ; but here the 

 good they do far outweighs the injury, and for this reason 

 they are protected by law. 



Cowbird. Cow Blackbird. Cow Bunting. 



Molothrus (iter. 



Leyigth. — Seven and one-half to about eight inches. 



Adult Male. — Liistrous black, -with a rich, lustrous brown head and neck. 



Adult Female. — Brownish-gray, slightly darker on wings and tail. 



Nest. — That of some other bird. 



Effgs. — "White, speckled all over with brown. 



Season. — April to October. 



This mucli-maligiied l)ird, which builds no home of its 

 own, and depends on others to hatch and rear its young, is, 

 nevertheless, an essential part of nature's plan. Birds that 

 rear their own young are confined by necessity to a certain 

 radius about their nests ; but the scattered bands of Cowbirds 

 form a wandering, unattached light squadron of insect de- 

 stroyers, which all summer long can go wherever fheir jires- 

 ence is most needed. In the warmer months of the jqhv they 

 feed almost entirely on insects, but during the colder months 

 thev live on seeds. 



