RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. 97 
ening the branches of the trees by their numbers, they com- 
mence a general concert that may be heard for more than two 
miles. This music seems to be something betwixt chattering 
and warbling, — jingling liquid notes like those of the Bobolink, 
with their peculiar kong-guér-reé and bob & le, o-bob & lee; then 
complaining chirps, jars, and sounds like saw-filing, or the 
motion of a sign-board on its rusty hinge ; the whole constitu- 
ting a novel and sometimes grand chorus of discord and 
harmony, in which the performers seem in good earnest, and 
bristle up their feathers as if inclined at least to make up in 
quantity what their show of music may lack in quality. 
When their food begins to fail in the fields, they assemble 
with the Purple Grakles very familiarly around the corn-cribs 
and in the barn-yards, greedily and dexterously gleaning up 
everything within their reach. In the month of March Mr. 
Bullock found them very numerous and bold near the city of 
Mexico, where they followed the mules to steal a tithe of their 
barley. 
From the beginning of March to April, according to the 
nature of the season, they begin to visit the Northern States in 
scattered parties, flying chiefly in the morning. As they wing 
their way they seem to relieve their mutual toil by friendly 
chatter, and being the harbingers of spring, their faults are 
forgot in the instant, and we cannot help greeting them as old 
acquaintances in spite of their predatory propensities. Selec- 
ting their accustomed resort, they make the low meadows 
resound again with their notes, particularly in the morning and 
evening before retiring to or leaving the roost; previous to 
settling themselves for the night, and before parting in the 
day, they seem all to join in a general chorus of liquid warb- 
ling tones, which would be very agreeable but for the inter- 
ruption of the plaints and jarring sounds with which it is 
blended. They continue to feed in small parties in swamps 
and by slow streams and ponds till the middle or close of 
April, when they begin to separate in pairs. Sometimes, how- 
ever, they appear to be partly polygamous, like their cousins 
the Cow Troopials ; as amidst a number of females engaged in 
VOL. 1. —7 
