TEBRUARY. 67 



mentioned, no less authentic and well deserving the consider- 

 ation of the enemies of these birds, more especially of those 

 who would stop at nothing short of their extermination. 

 Their general food, when they arrive in the spring as well as 

 during the early part of summer, consists of grub worms, cat- 

 erpillars, and various other larvas — the silent but deadly ene- 

 mies of all vegetation ; and whose secret and insidious at- 

 tacks are more to be dreaded than the combined mischief of 

 all the feathered tribes together. For these vermin, the red- 

 winged blackbirds search with great diligence in the ground, 

 at the roots of plants, in orchards and meadows, as well as 

 among buds, leaves and blossoms; and the multitudes of 

 these insects destroyed by them must be immense." 



The author illustrates this by a short computation : — If we 

 suppose each bird, on an average, to devour fifty of these 

 larvas in a day, and this is but a moderate allowance, a single 

 pair, in four months, the usual time when such food is sought, 

 will consume upwards of 12,000. It is believed that not less 

 than a million of pairs of these birds are distributed over the 

 United States in summer, whose food being nearly the same, 

 would swell the amount of vermin destroyed to 12,000,000,- 

 000. But the number of young birds may be estimated at 

 double that of their parents ; and as these are constantly fed 

 on larvae, for at least three weeks, making only the same al- 

 lowance for tliem as for the old ones, their share would 

 amount to 4,200,000,000 : making a grand total of 16,200,- 

 000,000, of noxious insects destroyed in the space of four 

 months, by this single species of birds. The combined rav- 

 ages of such a hideous host of vermin would be sufficient to 

 spread famine and desolation over a wide extent of the richest 

 and best cultivated country on earth. All this, it may be 

 said, is a mere supposition. It is a supposition, however, 

 founded on well known and acknowledged facts. I have 

 never (says Wilson) dissected any of these birds in the spring, 

 without receiving the most striking and satisfactory proofs of 

 these facts : and though it is impossible to ascertain precisely 

 the amount of benefit derived by Agriculture from this and 

 many other species of our birds, yet I cannot resist the belief, 



