110 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



maize - thieves. In New England the people are still 

 greater enemies to them ; for Dr. Franklin told me, in 

 the spring of the year 1750, that, b}'^ means of the pre- 

 miums which have been settled for killing them in New 

 England^ they have been so extirpated that they are 

 very rarely seen, and in a few places only. But as, in 

 the summer of the year 1749, an immense quantity of 

 worms appeared on the meadows, which devoured the 

 grass and did great damage, the people have abated their 

 enmity against the maize-thieves; for they thought they 

 had observed that those birds lived chiefly on these 

 worms before the maize is ripe." '-' r -)« ? ^■^, 



And the people did right in allowing their enmity to 

 abate. The grakles did far more good than evil, even 

 then ; and now, and for years, they no longer molest the 

 cornfields when the grain is ripe. The habit of opening 

 the husks at the ends of the ears, and so blasting them 

 for half their length, is no longer characteristic of these 

 birds. They have cured themselves of their greatest 

 fault, and now what little corn they take is that which 

 has been recently planted. But even in this case the birds 

 do not 80 much seek for the corn as for worms, and find- 

 ing the former, as it were by accident, devour it. An 

 examination of the stomach contents of grakles killed 

 while foraging in a newly-planted cornfield tells the 

 whole story. Place them in the worst light, and still 

 their good qualities far exceed the evil, so-called, of 

 their natures. 



The fact, already alluded to, of a change in their hab- 

 its is of much interest, as showing how altered environ- 

 ment affects the modes of living. Grakles, in the west- 



