36 ¥OOD OF BOBOLINK, BLACKBIRDS, AND GRACKLES. 
Wilson, in speaking of the food of the redwing, says: 
The whole season of winter, that, with most birds, is passed in struggling to sustain 
life in silent melancholy, is, with the redwings, one continued carnival. The profuse 
gleanings of the old rice, corn, and buckwheat fields, supply them with abundant 
food, at once ready and nutritious. * * * Before the beginning of September, 
these flocks have become numerous and formidable; and the young ears of maize, 
or Indian corn, being then in their soft, succulent, milky state, present a temptation 
that can not be resisted. Reenforced by numerous and daily flocks from all parts of 
the interior, they pour down on the low countries in prodigious multitudes. Here 
they are seen, like vast clouds, wheeling and driving over the meadows and devoted 
cornfields, darkening the air with their numbers. Then commences the work of 
destruction on the corn, the husks of which, * * * are soon completely or par- 
tially torn off; while from all quarters myriads continue to pour down like a tempest, 
blackening half an acre at a time; and, if not disturbed, repeat their depredations 
till little remains but the cob and the shriveled skins of the grain; what little is 
left of the tender ear, being exposed to the rains and weather, is generally much 
injured. * * * 
It has been already stated, that they arrive in Pennsylvania late in March. Their 
general food at this season, as well as during the early part of summer, * * * 
consists of grubworms, caterpillars, and various other larve, the silent, but deadly 
enemies of all vegetation, and whose secret and insidious attacks are more to be 
dreaded by the husbandman than the combined forces of the whole feathered tribes 
together. For these vermin, the starlings search with great diligence; in the ground, 
at the roots of plants, in orchards, and meadows, as well as among buds, leaves, and 
blossoms; and from their known voracity, the multitudes of these insects which they 
destroy must be immense. Let me illustrate this by a short computation: If we 
suppose each bird, on an average, to devour fifty of these larvee in a day, (a very 
moderate allowance, ) a single pair, in four months, the usual time such food is sought 
after, will consume upward of twelve thousand. It is believed, that not less than a 
million pair of these birds are distributed over the whole extent of the United States 
in summer; whose food, being nearly the same, would swell the amount of vermin 
destroyed to twelve thousand millions. But the number of young birds may be 
fairly estimated at double that of their parents; and, as these are constantly fed on 
larvee for at least three weeks, making only the same allowance for them as for the 
old ones, their share would amount to four thousand two hundred millions; making 
a grand total of sixteen thousand two hundred millions of noxious insects destroyed 
in the space of four months by this single species! The combined ravages of sucha 
hideous host of vermin would be sufficient to spread famine and desolation over a 
wide extent of the richest and best cultivated country on earth. All this, it may be 
said, is mere supposition. It is, however, supposition founded on known and 
acknowledged facts. I have never dissected any of these birds in spring without 
receiving the most striking and satisfactory proofs of these facts; and though, in a 
matter of this kind, it is impossible to ascertain precisely the amount of the benefits 
derived by agriculture from this, and many other species of our birds, yet, in the 
present case, I can not resist the belief, that the services of this species, in spring, are 
far more important and beneficial than the value of all that portion of corn which a 
careful and active farmer permits himself to lose by it. 
Audubon, in speaking of this species, says: 
The marsh blackbird is so well known as being a bird of the most nefarious pro- 
pensities, that in the United States one can hardly mention its name, without hearing 
such an account of its pilferings as might induce the young student of nature to con- 
ceive that it had been created for the purpose of annoying the farmer. That it 
