THE THRUSH 



145 



To this tribe might be added above a hun- 

 dred other birds of nearly the thrush size, arid 

 living like them upon fruits and berries. 

 Words could not afford variety enough to des- 

 cribe all the beautiful lints that adorn the 

 foreign birds of the thrush kind. The bril- 

 liant green of the emerald, the flaming red ot 



artless nest of dry grass or hay, on which four or five 

 eggs of a bluish-green colour, are deposited. Their food 

 principally consists of worms and other insects; but they 

 also eat grain and various seeds. The starling is a very 

 imitative bird, and, when tamed, may be taught to arti- 

 culate very distinctly, and to whistle tunes with mud 

 precision. In its wild state even, it may frequently be 

 heard endeavouring to imitate the cries of different birds 

 and animals. Its own peculiar notes are a shrill whistle, 

 and chattering kind of noiso. It is found throughout 

 Europe ; and the same species appeal's to be common 

 also in Asia, as I have seen specimens from Nupaul that 

 are precisely similar. Starlings are often seen >n com- 

 pany with rooks, pigeons, and jackdaws. 



The red-winged Starlings of America, though gener- 

 ally migratory in the States north of Maryland, are found 

 during winter in immense flocks, sometimes associated 

 with the purple grakles, and often by themselves, along 

 the whole lower parts of Virginia, both Carolinas, 

 'ieorgia, and Louisiana, particularly near the sea coast, 

 ami in the vicinity of large rice and corn fields. In 

 toe months of January and February, (says Wilson,) 

 while passing through the former of these countries, I 

 was frequently entertained with the aerial evolutions of 

 these great bodies of starlings. Sometimes they appeared 

 driving about like an enormous black cloud carried 

 before the wind, varying its shape every moment. Some- 

 times suddenly rising from the fields around me with a 

 noise like thunder ; while the glittering of innumerable 

 wings of the brightest vermilion amid the black cloud 

 they formed, produced on these occasions a very striking 

 and splendid eflect. Then descending like a torrent, and 

 covering the branches of some detached grove, or clump 

 of trees, the whole congregated multitude commenced 

 one general concert or chorus, that I have plainly dis- 

 tinguished at the distance of more than two miles; and, 

 when listened to at the intermediate space of about a 

 quarter of a mile, with a slight breeze of wind to swell 

 and soften the flow of its cadences, was to me grand, 

 and even sublime. The whole season of winter, that, 

 with most birds, is past in struggling to sustain life in 

 silent melancholy, is, with the red-wings, one continued 

 carnival. The profuse gleanings of the old rice, corn, 

 and buckwheat fields, supply them with abundant food, 

 at once ready and nutritious; and the intermediate time 

 is spent either in aerial manoeuvres, or in grand vocal 

 performances, as if solicitous to supply the absence of 

 all the tuneful summer tribes, and to cheer the dejected 

 face of nature with their whole combined powers of har- 

 mony. Before the beginning of September, these flocks 

 have become numerous and formidable ; and the young 

 ears of maize, or Indian corn, being then in their soft 

 succulent, milky state, present a temptation that cannot 

 be resisted. Reinforced by numerous and daily flocks 

 from all parts of the interior, they pour down on the low 

 countries in prodigious multitudes. Here they are seen, 

 like vast clouds, wheeling and driving over the mea- 

 dows and devoted corn fields, darkening the air with 

 their numbers. Then commences the work of destruc- 

 tion on the corn, the husks of which, though composed 

 of numerous envelopements of closely wrapt leaves, are 

 soon completely or partially torn ofl'; while from all 

 quarters myriads continue to pour down like a tempest, 

 blackening half an acre at a time; and, if not disturbed, 

 repeat their depreciations till little remains but the cob 

 and the shrivelled skins of the grain ; what little is left 



VOL. II. 



the ruby, the purple of the amethyst, or the 

 bright blue of the sapphire, could not, by the 

 most artful combination, show any thing so 

 truly lively or delightful to the sight, us the 

 feathers of the chilcoqui or the tautotal. 

 Passing, therefore, over these beautiful, but 

 little known, birds, I will only mention the 



of the tender ear, being exposed to the rains and wea- 

 ther, is generally much injured. All the attacks and 

 havoc made at this time among them with the gun, 

 and by the hawks, several species of which are their 

 constant attendants, has little effect on the remainder. 

 When the hawks make a sweep among them, they sud- 

 denly open on all sides, but rarely in time to disappoint 

 them of their victims; and, though repeatedly fired at, 

 with mortal eflect, they only remove from one field to 

 an adjoining one, or to another quarter of the same in- 

 closure. From dawn to nearly sunset, this open and 

 daring devastation is carried on, under the eye of the 

 proprietor; and a farmer, who has any considerable ex- 

 tent of corn, would require half-a-dozen men at least, 

 with guns, to guard it ; and even then, all their vigi- 

 lance and activity would not prevent a good tithe of it 

 from becoming the prey of the blackbirds. The Indians, 

 who usually plant their corn in one general field, keep 

 the whole young boys of the village all day patrolling 

 round and among it; and each being furnished with bow 

 and arrows, with which they are very expert, they gener- 

 ally contrive to destroy great numbers of them. To 

 compensate their consumption of corn in autumn, their 

 general food in spring, as well as during the early part 

 of summer, consists of grub-worms, caterpillars, and 

 various other Jar vie, the silent, but deadly enemies of 

 all vegetation, and whose secret and insidious attacks are 

 more to be dreaded by the husbandman than the com- 

 bined forces of the whole feathered tribes together. For 

 these vermin, the starlings 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, from their known voracity, the multitudes of these 

 insects which they destroy must be immense. Let me 

 illustrate this (continues Wilson) by a short computation ; 

 If we suppose each bird, on an average, to devour fifty 

 of these larvte in a day (a very moderate allowance), a 

 single pair, in four months, the usual time such food is 

 sought after, will consume upwards of twelve thousand. 

 It is believed, that not less than a million pair of these 

 birds are distributed over the whole extent of the United 

 States in summer ; whose food being nearly the same, 

 would swell the amount of vermin destroyed to twelve 

 thousand millions. But the number of young birds 

 may be fairly estimated at double that of their parents ; 

 and, as these are constantly fed on larvae for at least three 

 weeks, making only the same allowance for them as for 

 the old ones, their share would amount to four thousand 

 two hundred millions ; making a grand total of sixteen 

 thousand two hundred millions of noxious insects de- 

 stroyed in the space of four months by this single species ! 

 The combined ravages 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 mere supposition. 

 It is, however, supposition, founded on known and ac- 

 knowledged facts. I have never dissected any of these 

 birds in spring without receiving the most striking and 

 satisfactory proofs of these facts ; and though, in a mat- 

 ter of this kind, it is impossible to ascertain precisely 

 the amount of the benefits derived by agriculture from 

 this, and many other species of our birds, yet in the 

 present case, I cannot resist the belief, that the services 

 of this species, in spring, are far more important and 

 beneficial than the value of all that portion of corn which 

 a careful and active farmer permits himself to lose by it 



