136 THE BIRDS ABOUT Us. 



ivory-white eye that is very beautiful. When seen 

 at a distance the bird appears of a uniform jetty 

 black. Judging from the accounts of the earlier 

 writers, they are not as abundant now as in the early 

 years of the century. Wilson speaks of a flock of 

 one hundred thousand birds. This is several points 

 better than any recent experience can show. In 

 early spring the grakles appear in little colonies, and 

 choosing a cluster of trees that offers security, they 

 build many nests in close proximity ; and the care 

 exercised in keeping their voracious offspring sup- 

 plied with food shows how devoted they are to their 

 own flesh and blood. From early morning until it is 

 quite dark the parent birds pass out into the fields, 

 and soon return with a grasshopper or fat grub, and 

 then out again for more. This is kept up with a 

 regularity that is interesting for several reasons. I 

 have often timed them, and the period of absence 

 from the nest is remarkably uniform. Having de- 

 termined how many insects are brought to the nest in 

 a given ten minutes, a very close calculation can be 

 made as to the amount of food consumed in a " day" 

 of about ten hours. It needs no slaughtering of scores 

 of birds to determine such facts as these, and I am 

 not sure if the eyes are not better than the shot-gun 

 to determine the feeding habits of nearly all our 

 birds. That grakles pull up sprouting corn can 

 hardly be questioned, but if the corn be tarred they 

 leave it alone, and while walking between the rows 

 they feed upon cutworms innumerable. The doleful 

 accounts of the destruction of the corn crop by these 

 birds, as given by Wilson and repeated by Nuttall, 



