BIRDS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 315 



It never faltered, broke, or wavered, but kept straight on into 

 the gathering gloom of night. The whole array presented 

 no such appearance as the unformed flocks ordinarily seen 

 earlier in the season, but was a finer formation than I have 

 ever seen elsewhere, among either land birds or water-fowl. 

 It seemed to be a migration of all the Crow Blackbirds in 

 the region, and there appeared to be a few Rusty Blackbirds 

 with them. After that date I saw but one Crow Blackbird. 

 It was impossible to estimate the number of birds in this 

 flight. My companions believed there were "millions." 



The character of the food of the Crow Blackbirds is very 

 well known. The large flocks in which they gather in autumn 

 are very destructive to ripening corn, and some individuals 

 destroy birds' eggs or young l)irds ; otherwise, in Massachu- 

 setts the birds are largely beneficial. They sometimes pull 

 up a little sprouting corn, but are not nearly so destructive 

 in this respect as the Crows. Dr. AVarren tells of the dis- 

 section of thirty-one birds that were shot in a Pennsylvania 

 cornfield : nineteen had only cutworms in their stomachs ; 

 seven had taken some corn, but a very large excess of in- 

 sects, mainly beetles and cutworms, with earthworms ; the 

 remaining fi^'e had eaten chiefly beetles. The Crow Black- 

 bird industriously follows the plow, and picks uj) many 

 beetles, grubs, cutworms, and some earthworms. In S})riiig 

 and summer its food in ^Massachusetts is mainly insects. 



Xearly twenty-five hundred stomachs of the species have 

 been examined in Washin2;ton. The food for the year was 

 composed of over thirty per cent, animal and almost seventy 

 per cent, vegetable matter, which shows that the birds are al- 

 most as omnivorous as the Crow. Insect food forms twentj^- 

 seven per cent, of the Avhole. The greater part is taken in 

 sunmier. Beetles, particularly Scaraba'ids like the "June 

 bug" or "rose bug," Carabids or ground beetles, curculios 

 or weevils, form a large part of the food. The Crackles 

 seem to be fond of white grubs, and the stomach is often 

 packed with these insects. Crackles are not so skillful in 

 digging them out as is the Robin, l)ut they are sly enough 

 to snatch the grub away from the Robin when he has secured 

 one. They are very destructive to grasshoppers and locusts. 



