The Birds' Calendar 



devoured during their four months' stay in the 

 United States 16,200,000,000 noxious insects ! 



I quote from the same writer the following 

 brief and interesting account of their winter life 

 in the Southern States. " Sometimes they ap- 

 peared driving about like an enormous black 

 cloud carried before the wind, varying its shape 

 every moment. Sometimes suddenly rising 

 from the fields around me with a noise like 

 thunder; while the glittering of innumerable 

 wings of the brightest vermilion, amid the black 

 cloud they formed, produced on these occasions 

 a very striking and splendid effect. Then de- 

 scending like a torrent, and covering the branch- 

 es of some detached grove, or clump of trees, 

 the whole congregated multitude commenced 

 one general concert or chorus, that I have 

 plainly distinguished at the distance of more 

 than two miles, and when listened to at the in- 

 termediate space of a quarter of a mile, with a 

 slight breeze of wind to swell and soften the 

 flow of its cadences, was to me grand and even 

 sublime. The whole season of winter, that with 

 most birds is passed in struggling to sustain life 

 in silent melancholy, is with the red-wings one 

 continued carnival." 



As a singer the red-winged blackbird has 

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