58 FOOD OF BOBOLINK, BLACKBIRDS, AND GRACKLES. 
where they had been thrown. Hence, it seems fair to infer that the 
erackle indulges its nest-robbing proclivities only occasionally, and 
that the prevalence of the habit has been considerably exaggerated. 
The crow blackbird, by reason of its habits, numbers, and wide dis- 
tribution over the eastern part of our country, is so conspicuous 
among the native birds that much valuable information concerning 
its food habits is contained in previous publications. 
Wilson refers to it as a ‘noted depredator’ that ‘is well known to 
every careful farmer of the Northern and Middle States,’ and says: 
About the 20th of March the purple grakles visit Pennsylvania from the south, fly 
in loose flocks, frequent swamps and meadows, and follow in the furrows after the 
plough; their food at this season consisting of worms, grubs, and caterpillars, of 
which they destroy prodigious numbers, as if to recompense the husbandman before- 
hand for the havoe they intend to make among his crops of Indian corn. * * * 
The trees where these birds build are often at no great distance from the farm house, 
and overlook the plantations. From thence they issue, in all directions, and with as 
much confidence, to make their daily depredations among the surrounding fields, as 
if the whole were intended for their use alone. Their chief attention, however, is 
directed to the Indian corn in all its progressive stages. As soon as the infant blade 
of this grain begins to make its appearance above ground, the grakles hail the wel- 
come signal with screams of peculiar satisfaction, and, without waiting for a formal 
invitation from the proprietor, descend on the fields and begin to pull up and regale 
themselves on the seed, scattering the green blades around. * * * About the 
beginning of August, when the young ears are in their milky state, they are attacked 
with redoubled eagerness by the grakles and redwings, in formidable and combined 
bodies. They descend like a blackening, sweeping tempest on the corn, dig off the 
external covering of twelve or fifteen coats of leaves, as dexterously as if done by the 
hand of man, and, having laid bare the ear, leave little behind to the farmer but the 
cobs, and shriveled skins, that contained their favorite fare. I have seen fields of 
corn of many acres, where more than one-half was thus ruined. Indeed the farmers 
in the immediate vicinity of the rivers Delaware and Schuylkill, generally allow one- 
fourth of this crop to the blackbirds, among whom our grakle comes in for his full 
share. 
* * * As some consolation, however, to the industrious cultivator, I can assure 
him, that were I placed in his situation, I should hesitate whether to consider these 
birds most as friends or enemies, as they are particularly destructive to almost all the 
noxious worms, grubs, and caterpillars, that infest his fields, which, were they allowed 
to multiply unmolested, would soon consume nine-tenths of all the production of his 
lalour, and desolate the country with the miseries of famine.' 
Nuttall speaks of the bird’s destructiveness in the cornfield in much 
the same terms, and adds: 
Up to the time of harvest, I have uniformly, on dissection, found their food to 
consist of these larvic, caterpillars, moths, and leetles, of which they devour such 
numbers, that but for this providential economy, the whole crop of grain, in many 
places, would probably be destroyed by the time it began to germinate. In winter 
they collect the mast of the beech and oak for food, and aay be seen assembled in 
large bodies in the woods for this pune? a 
TAin, ‘Guitth, Edinburgh fils Vol. I, pp. 227-230, 1831. 
*Manual of Ornith., Land Birds, pp. 195-196, 1832. 
