HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



337 



RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. 



bers, they commence a general concert that may be 

 heard for more than two miles. This music seems to 

 be something betwixt chattering and warbling ; jing 

 ling liquid notes like those of the bobolink with 

 their peculiar kong-quer-ree and bob a lee, o-bob a lee ; 

 then complaining chirps, jars, and sounds like saw- 

 filing, or the motion of a sign-board on its rusty hinge, 

 the whole constituting a novel and sometimes grand 

 chorus of discord and harmony, in which the perform 

 ers, seem in good earnest, and bristle up their feathers, 

 as if inclined, at least, to make up in quantity what 

 their show of music may lack in quality. 



When their food begins to fail in the fields, they 

 assemble with the purple grakles, very familiarly 

 around the corn-cribs and in the barn-yards, greedily 

 and dexterously gleaning up every thing within their 

 reach. In the month of March, Mr. Bullock found 

 them very numerous and bold near the city of Mexico, 

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