Conspicuously Black 



complain, too, that the blackbirds eat their corn, forgetting that 

 having devoured innumerable grubs from it during the summer, 

 the birds feel justly entitled to a share of the profits. Though 

 occasionally guilty of eating the farmer's corn and oats and rice, 

 yet it has been found that nearly seven-eighths of the red- 

 wing's food is made up of weed-seeds or of insects injurious to 

 agriculture. 



This bird builds its nest in low bushes on the margin of 

 ponds or low in the bog grass of marshes. From three to five 

 pale-blue eggs, curiously streaked, spotted, and scrawled with 

 black or purple, constitute a brood. Nursery duties are soon 

 finished, for in July the young birds are ready to gather in flocks 

 with their elders. 



" The blackbirds make the maples ring 

 With social cheer and jubilee ; 

 The red-wing flutes his ' 0-ka-lee ! ' " 



— Emerson. 



Purple Martin 



(Progne suhis) Swallow family 



Length-^'] to 8 inches. Two or three inches smaller than the 



robin. 

 Male—'RAch glossy black with bluish and purple reflections ; 



duller black on wings and tail. Wings rather longer than 



the tail, which is forked. 

 Female — More brownish and mottled ; grayish below. 

 ^ange — Peculiar to America. Penetrates from Arctic Circle to 



South America. 

 Migrations — Late April. Early September. Summer resident. 



In old-fashioned gardens, set on a pole over which honey- 

 suckle and roses climbed from a bed where China pinks, phlox, 

 sweet Williams, and hollyhocks crowded each other below, 

 martin boxes used always to be seen with a pair of these large, 

 beautiful swallows circling overhead. But now, alas! the boxes, 

 where set up at all, are quickly monopolized by the English spar- 

 row, a bird that the martin, courageous as a kingbird in attacking 

 crows and hawks, tolerates as a neighbor only when it must. 



Bradford Torrey tells of seeing quantities of long-necked 

 squashes dangling from poles about the negro cabins all through 



48 



