Il6 SINGING BIRDS. 



to May, leaving those countries again in numerous troops about 

 the middle of November. Thus assembled from the North and 

 West in increasing numbers, they wholly overrun, at times, the 

 warmer maritime regions, where they assemble to pass the 

 winter in the company of their well-known cousins the Red- 

 winged Troopials or Blackbirds; for both, impelled by the 

 same predatory appetite, and love of comfortable winter 

 quarters, are often thus accidentally associated in the plun- 

 dering and gleaning of the plantations. The amazing 

 numbers in which the present species associate are almost 

 incredible. Wilson relates that on the 20th of January, a few 

 miles from the banks of the Roanoke in Virginia, he met with 

 one of those prodigious armies of Blackbirds, which, as he ap- 

 proached, rose from the surrounding fields with a noise like 

 thunder, and descending on the stretch of road before him, 

 covered it and the fences completely with black ; rising again, 

 after a few evolutions, they descended on the skirt of a leafless 

 wood, so thick as to give the whole forest, for a considerable 

 extent, the appearance of being shrouded in mourning, the 

 numbers amounting probably to many hundreds of thousands. 

 Their notes and screams resembled the distant sound of a 

 mighty cataract, but strangely attuned into a musical cadence, 

 which rose and fell with the fluctuation of the breeze, like the 

 magic harp of ^Eolus. 



Their depredations on the maize crop or Indian com com- 

 mence almost with the planting. The infant blades no sooner 

 appear than they are hailed by the greedy Blackbird as the 

 signal for a feast ; and without hesitation, they descend on the 

 fields, and regale themselves with the sweet and sprouted seed, 

 rejecting and scattering the blades around as an evidence of 

 their mischief and audacity. Again, about the beginning of 

 August, while the grain is in the milky state, their attacks are 

 renewed with the most destructive effect, as they now assemble 

 as it were in clouds, and pillage the fields to such a degree 

 that in some low and sheltered situations, in the vicinity of 

 rivers, where they delight to roam, one fourth of the crop is 

 devoured by these vexatious visitors. The gun, also, notwith- 



