25 
becomes very rare, or entirely disappears, owing to the fact that it col- 
lects in large flocks and retires to some quiet place, where food is 
abundant and where it can remain undisturbed during the molting 
season, but in the latter days of August and throughout September it 
usually reappears in immense numbers before moving southward. 
It is evident that a bird so large and so abundant may exercise an 
important influence upon the agricultural welfare of the country it 
inhabits. The crow blackbird has been accused of many sins, such as 
stealing grain and fruit and robbing the nests of other birds; but the 
farmers do not undertake any war of extermination- against it, and, 
for the most part, allow it to nest about the premises undisturbed. An 
examination of 2,258 stomachs showed that nearly one-third of its food 
consists of insects, of which the greater part are injurious. The bird 
Fic. 13.—Crow blackbird. 
also eats a few snails, crayfishes, salamanders, small fish, and occasion- 
ally a mouse. The stomach contents do not indicate that it robs other 
birds’ nests to any great extent, as remains of birds and birds’ eggs 
amount to less than one-half of 1 per cent. 
It is, however, on account of its vegetable food that the grackle is 
most likely to be accused of doing damage. Grain is eaten during the 
whole year, and during only a short time in summer is other food 
attractive enough to induce the bird to alter its diet. The grain taken 
in the winter and spring months probably consists of waste kernels 
gathered from the stubble. The stomachs do not indicate that the bird 
pulls sprouting grain; but the wheat eaten in July and August, and 
the corn eaten in the fall, are probably taken from fields of standing 
