AVES—CROW BLACKBIRD. 489 
tions. As soon as the blade of corn begins to make its appearance, the 
erow blackbirds hail it with screams of satisfaction, and descend on the 
fields, and begin to pull up and regale themselves on the seeds, scattering 
the green blades around. While thus eagerly employed, the vengeance of 
Ine gun sometimes overtakes them; but those 
“ ____who live to get away, 
Return to steal another day.” 
In the early times of New England, it was customary, in some towns, to 
require each inhabitant to kill a certain number of these birds year y, a 
fine being imposed upon such as did not destroy and exhibit the requisite 
number. 
When the young ears are in a milky state, they are attacked with redoubled 
eagerness by the grakles and red-wings. They descend on the corn like 
a blackening and sweeping tempest; dig off the external covering of the 
leaves, and having laid bare the ear, leave little behind to the farmer but the 
cobs and shrivelled skins. Whole acres of corn have been thus more than 
half ruined. During these depredations, the gun makes great havoc among 
them, which has no other effect than to send the survivors to another field. 
This system of plunder and retaliation continues till November, when they 
sheer off to the south, where they collect and darken the air with their 
numbers, which sometimes amount to a hundred thousand. They rise from 
the fields with a noise like thunder, and descend on the roads and fences; 
and when they rise and cover the high timbered trees, then destitute of 
leaves, they produce a most singular and striking effect; the whole trees 
seeming as if hung in mourning, their notes and screams, meanwhile, re- 
sembling the sound of a distant cataract, but in more musical cadence, 
swelling and dying away on the ear, according to the fluctuation of the 
breeze. 
These birds are called by the farmers crow blackbirds, and are universally 
dreaded and detested. But if they do destroy the corn, they do nearly as 
much good as evil, by devouring numbers of noxious worms, grubs, and 
caterpillars, that infest the fields, which would, if not destroyed, desolate 
the country! The purple grakle is easily tamed, and sings in confinement. 
They have been taught to articulate several words. These birds are allowed 
by the fish-hawks to build in the interstices of his nest, where they all hatch 
their young, and live together in perfect harmony. 
It is twelve inches long; on a slight view, it appears wholly black, but 
placed near, it appears of a rich, glossy steel blue, violet and green. The 
bill is more than an inch long, the upper mandible being tery sharp. The 
female is of a sooty brown color. 
62 
