RED- WINGED STARLING. 41 



London many years ago ; and on being opened its stomach 

 was found to be filled with grub -worms, caterpillars, and 

 beetles." 



The range of country in the western hemisphere fre- 

 quented by this species, and over which it migrates, ex- 

 tends from Mexico on the south, to a great distance up the 

 Missouri, westward and northward, and to Labrador and 

 Newfoundland on the east. 



Mr. Audubon remarks, " The Marsh Blackbird is so 

 well known as a bird of the most nefarious propensities, 

 that, in the United States, one can hardly mention its 

 name, without hearing such an account of its pilferings as 

 might induce the young student of nature to conceive that 

 it had been created for the purpose of annoying the 

 farmer. That it destroys an astonishing quantity of corn, 

 rice, and other sorts of grain, cannot be denied ; but that 

 before it commences its ravages, it has proved highly 

 serviceable to the crops is equally certain." 



Flocks of these birds, most formidable by their numbers, 

 assail the various corn crops whenever they are in a state 

 to afford them food. After the corn is gathered, the pro- 

 fuse gleanings of the old rice, corn, and buck-wheat fields 

 supply them abundantly. Later in the season they as- 

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

 greedily and dexterously picking up everything within 

 their reach, and Mr. Bullock mentions having seen them 

 very numerous and bold near the city of Mexico, where 

 they followed the mules to steal a tithe of the barley 

 with which they were fed. The accounts of this bird 

 by Wilson, Audubon, and Nuttall are interesting. 



Sir John Richardson's observations on the Red-winged 

 Starling, in the Fauna Boreali- Americana, are as follow : 



" This showy, but destructive bird winters in vast 

 numbers in the southern districts of the United States, and 



