BIRDS OF INDIANA. 895 



this call: "con-GUT-ee^" and says its whistling noise is tii-tii. Gen- 

 erally they nest in colonies. The males are polygamous. Each one 

 has usually two females. But this is not always so. For, often 

 in these latter days, when draining and ditching are driving many 

 birds to other haunts, and habits, solitary pairs are found about 

 many little cattle ponds, fish ponds, or springy drains. They are 

 even becoming noticeable in the more level country. In many mead- 

 ows, where is a wet place, no water, a nest or two will be found. 

 Prof. W. P. Shannon calls my attention to the fact that they are 

 frequenting such places in Decatur County, and thus becoming 

 more generally distributed and better known than they formerly were. 

 The spring of 1897 he found two nests about such a place, one in a 

 bunch of sour-dock, the other in a tuft of white top. Nests are found 

 the middle of April, and full sets of fresh eggs are found until, at 

 least, near the middle of May Waterloo, May 12, 1885 (Snyder). 

 Their nests and those of the last mentioned species are similar in con- 

 struction and location, as a rule. The Red-winged Blackbird some- 

 times builds in bushes or trees, as much as fifteen feet from the 

 ground. Mr. J. 0. Snyder told me of one nest he found that was 18 

 inches in diameter. They usually rear but one brood in a season. 

 One egg is laid daily, and it requires about two weeks for them to 

 hatch. In August and September they collect in flocks in the upper 

 Mississippi Valley, where they breed much more abundantly than they 

 do with us. At this season they do much damage to the maturing 

 corn. In the South, among the rice fields of the Gulf coast, they do 

 great damage. Prof. Bears investigations show that, of 725 birds ex- 

 amined, 74 per cent, of their food was vegetable matter and 26 per 

 cent, animal. Insects were the greater part of the latter, and consisted 

 chiefly of beetles, weevils and grasshoppers. The quantity of grain 

 eaten was less than we would have supposed. It constituted but a 

 little over 13 per cent, of the total food, and consisted of corn, wheat 

 and oats; oats form nearly half of that amount. 



The principal food, in fact, almost the entire food, in winter, was 

 weed seed. That formed 54 per cent, of the year's food. Thus nox- 

 ious and injurious insects form its principal food, and, save in cer- 

 tain localities, it is decidedly a beneficial bird. 



They wander about through the fall, sometimes starting southward 

 in September. Other years they are passing through October and even 

 remain northward some winters until early November (J. Gr. Parker, 

 Jr.). The following are a few dates showing range at which last speci- 

 mens were seen: Lafayette, Ind., October 5, 1895; Bicknell, Septem- 

 ber 28, 1894, December 1, 1896; Brookville, 'November 11, 1886. 



