8 FOOD OF BOBOLINK, BLACKBIRDS, AND GRACKLES 
Writers on ornithology give notes on the food of various species of 
birds, based for the most part on field observation, and in some cases 
on examination of stomachs, but usually such investigations are neither 
extensive nor systematic. In the early days, when birds were abun- 
dant and grainfields few, blackbirds, or ‘maize thieves,’ as they were 
called, were the first species to render themselves objects of notice by 
their attacks upon the crops of the early settlers, and bounties were 
offered for their destruction; in fact, they had already acquired a bad 
reputation with the aborigines by their depredations upon the patches 
of maize. Their very pronounced taste for grain, and their habit of 
associating in large flocks, soon attracted the attention of pioneer 
farmers everywhere; and it did not take these shrewd observers long 
to decide that the birds were a nuisance and to plan for their extermina- 
tion. All devices of this kind, however, have (fortunately, perhaps) 
proved futile. The birds still flourish, though in somewhat reduced 
numbers, and are still a source of considerable damage in many places. 
At the present day direct bounties are not so much in vogue as they 
were when the country was newer; and State laws protecting birds have 
become numerous. But the evil repute of the blackbirds has caused 
them to be omitted from many of these statutes, while in others 
either blackbirds in general or particular species are specially ox- 
empted from protection. Blackbirds in general are specially exempted 
in Maryland, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Arkansas; the 
crow blackbird in Vermont, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and IIli- 
nois; the ricebird (bobolink) in Georgia; the ‘common blackbird’ 
and the crow blackbird in New York; the crow blackbird in Rhode 
Island; and the crow blackbird and redwing in New Jersey. 
In certain States near the Atlantic seaboard some species, notably the 
bobolink, are regarded as game, and an open season is provided for 
shooting them. In New Jersey ‘recdbirds’ (bobolinks) may be law- 
fully killed from August 25 to January 1; in Pennsylvania from Sep- 
tember 1 to November 30; in Delaware from September 1 to February 
1; and in Maryland between September 1 and November 1. In the 
District of Columbia the redwing is included with the bobolink, and 
shooting is permitted on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, between 
August 21 and February 1. 
The investigation of the food of blackbirds by the examination of 
the contents of their stomachs, while confirming to a certain extent 
the popular estimate of their grain-eating propensities, has shown 
aso that during the season when grain is not accessible these birds 
destroy immense quantities of seeds of harmful weeds, and that during 
the whole of the warmer portion of the year, even when grain is easily 
obtained, they devour a great number of noxious inscets. The vege- 
table portion of the food usually considerably exceeds the animal. 
