RED-WINGED STARLING. 37 



The range of country in the western hemisphere fre- 

 quented by this species, and over which it migrates, ex- 

 tends from Mexico on the south, to a great distance up the 

 Missouri, westward and northward, and . to Labrador and 

 Newfoundland on the east. 



Mr. Audubon remarks, " The Marsh Blackbird is so 

 well-known as a bird of the most nefarious propensities, 

 that in the United States, one can hardly mention its 

 name, without hearing such an account of its pilferings as 

 might induce the young student of nature to conceive that 

 it had been created for the purpose of annoying the 

 farmer. That it destroys an astonishing quantity of corn, 

 rice and other sorts of grain, cannot be denied ; but that 

 before it commences its ravages, it has proved highly 

 serviceable to the crops, is equally certain." 



Flocks of these birds, most formidable by their numbers, 

 assail the various corn crops whenever they are in a state 

 to afford them food. After the corn is gathered the pro- 

 fuse gleanings of the old rice, corn and buck-wheat fields 

 supply them abundantly. Later in the season they as- 

 semble around the corn-cribs, and in the barn-yards, 

 greedily and dexterously picking up every thing within 

 their reach, and Mr. Bullock mentions having seen them 

 very numerous and bold near the city of Mexico, where 

 they followed the mules to steal a tithe of the barley 

 with which they were fed. The accounts of this bird 

 by Wilson, Audubon and Nuttall are interesting. 



Dr. Kichardson's observations on the Red-winged Starl- 

 ing, in the Fauna Boreali- Americana, are as follows : 



" This showy, but destructive bird winters in vast 

 numbers in the southern districts of the United States, and 

 in Mexico, frequenting swampy places, and roosting at night 

 among the reeds. It begins to enter Pennsylvania towards 



