94 Bird - Lore 



relationship existing between the members, though it is apparent that the 

 sober brown, striped females outnumber the males; but in places where the 

 birds are uncommon and only one or two male birds can be found, it is 

 easily seen that the household of the male consists of from three to five nests 

 each presided over by a watchful female, and when danger arises this feath- 

 ered Mormon shows equal anxiety for each nest, and circles screaming about 

 the general location. In colony life the males oftentimes act in concert as 

 a general guard, being diverted oftentimes from the main issue, it must be 

 confessed, to indulge in duels and pitched battles among themselves. 



The Redwing belongs to a notable family — that of the 

 His Family Blackbirds and Orioles — and, in spite of the structural sem- 

 blances that group them together, the differences of plumage, 

 voice and breeding habits are very great. 



The Cowbird, the Redwing's next of kin, even lacks the rich liquid call 

 note of the latter and the lack of marital fidelity on the part of the male is 

 met in a truly progressive spirit by the female, who, shirking all domestic 

 responsibility, drops her eggs craftily in the nests of other and usually smaller 

 birds, who can not easily resent the imposition. Though a strong proof of 

 the unconscious affinity of race lies in the fact that these young foundling 

 Cowbirds invariably join the parent flocks in autumn instead of continuing 

 with their foster mothers. 



The Meadowlark with the true spring song, who hides his nest in the dry 

 grass of old fields, is also kin to the Redwing and the Bobolink too, the 

 vocal harlequin of the meadows and hillside pastures. The Orchard and 

 Baltimore Orioles, also next of kin, are skilled musicians and model husbands. 



Still another plane is to be found in the Redwing's dismal cousins, the 

 Grackles — Purple, Rusty, Bronzed and Boat-tailed — all harsh of voice and 

 furtive in action, as if a Crow fairy had been present at their creating and, 

 endowing them with ready wits, had, at the same time, deprived them of 

 all sense of humor and cast a shadow upon their happiness. For a Gracklc 

 is gloomy, even during the absurd gyrations of his courtship, and when, in 

 autumn, the great flocks settle on lawns and fields and solemnly walk about, 

 as they forage they seem like a party of feathered mutes waiting to attend 

 the funeral of the year; and this trait somewhat tinctures the disposition of 

 the Redwing before and after the breeding season. 



The Redwing, in one of his many subspecific forms, and 

 His Country masquerading under many names, — Red -shouldered Black- 

 bird, American Starling and Swamp Blackbird, — lives in North 

 America from Nova Scotia and Great Slave Lake southward to Costa Rica. 

 The Redwing, as known to us of middle and eastern North America, breeds 

 in all parts of its United States and Canadian range, though it is more 

 numerous by far in the great prairies of the upper Mississippi valley, with 

 their countless backwater sloughs, than anywhere else. It is in regions of 



