ORIOLES. 259 



at the intermediate space of about a quarter of a mile, with 

 a slight breeze of wind to swell and soften the flow of its 

 cadences, was to me grand and even sublime. The whole 

 season of winter that with most birds is passed in struggling 

 to sustain life, in silent melancholy, is with the Eed-wings 

 one continued carnival. The profuse gleanings of the old 

 rice, corn, and buckwheat fields supply them with abundant 

 food, at once ready and nutritious ; and the intermediate 

 time is spent either in aerial manoeuvres, or in grand vocal 

 performances, as if solicitous to supply the absence of all the 

 tuneful summer tribes, and to cheer the dejected face of 

 nature with their whole combined powers of harmony." 

 Though Wilson does not deny the great injuries which these 

 birds do to crops, where agriculture is extensively carried on, 

 yet he estimates at the time of his writing that they ate, in 

 four months spent in the United States, 16,200,000,000 

 noxious insects ! 



The Swamp Blackbirds are to be found in summer so far 

 to the northward as the 57th parallel of latitude, though in 

 many parts of northern New England altogether absent. 

 They are sometimes the first birds to visit us in spring, 

 though generally preceded by the Bluebirds. They are said 

 to have reached Massachusetts in February, and even excep- 

 tionally to have passed the winter here. Ordinarily, however, 

 they appear in March, though with no great regularity, the 

 males preceding the females ; and previously to mating, which 

 occurs about the first of May, they are more or less grega- 

 rious. During the period of arrival, they may be observed 

 flying at a considerable height in the air, and often uttering 

 their loud chuck, though sometimes silent. Later in the 

 season, they visit plowed lands and fields, to obtain what- 

 ever suitable food they can find, walking over the ground in 

 search of it, and, when frightened, betaking themselves to the 

 nearest trees, where they frequently cluster in large numbers. 

 They roost at night in bushy meadows and in swamps. 

 When the weather permits, they frequent these by day, and 

 also the open meadows, from which their notes are constantly 

 heard. They soon mate, and in May begin to build their 



