INTRODUCTION. 1] 
In regard to the economic status of the blackbirds, it may be said 
that the damage done by the redwings and some other species has 
apparently arisen from the excessive number of individuals rather than 
from the habits of the species. Thoughtful students of nature have 
observed that every race or species has a certain high-water mark of 
abundance, beyond which it can not rise without danger of encroaching 
upon and injuring other species. This is true of every species, whether 
at its normal abundance it be beneficial to man or otherwise. The 
exemplification of this principle is most noticeable in the case of 
insects, many species of which frequently exceed their ordinary 
bounds and spread destruction among crops. But the rule is equally 
applicable to birds; however useful they may be in a general way, it 
is possible under certain conditions that particular species may become 
too numerous. 1 
There is no reasonable doubt that in the Mississippi Valley the 
redwings and yellowheads, and farther west Brewer’s blackbird, are 
much too abundant for the interests of the grain grower. The facili- 
ties for nesting afforded by the prairie sloughs and marshes, where 
for ages these species have been undisturbed, have given rise to such 
immense hordes that they can in a few hours destroy hundreds of 
acres of grain, or at least take so much that the remainder is not 
worth harvesting. Originally the birds obtained their food from wild 
plants, but with the advent of civilized man and the planting of grain- 
fields a new source of food was provided. The wild rice (Zczania 
aquatica), which was one of their favorite foods, does not ripen till 
September, but wheat and oats are ripe from June to August, and are 
much more abundant and more easily obtained than any of the wild 
seeds. What wonder that the birds at once availed themselves of this 
new supply of food spread before them with such a lavish hand! In 
the early days of settlement the fight near large marshes to save the 
grain from redwinged blackbirds was as fierce as is now the struggle 
in the South to save the rice crop from the bobolinks. As the country 
has become more thickly settled a greater area of grain is sown and 
the damage is relatively less and more widely distributed. With the 
further advance of civilization, and the broadening of the area of cul- 
tivation, many of the marshes will be drained and the present nesting 
places will become arable fields. This will necessarily reduce the 
numbers of the birds, and it is almost certain that in time they will 
reach the limit at which they are no longer harmful, ax is already the 
case in the Eastern States. 
Perhaps the most peculiar case presented by any of our birds is that 
of the bobolink. Loved and cherished in the North, and there made 
the subject of poetry and romance, in the South it is execrated and 
destroyed and conceded but one redeeming quality—that its body is 
