Bird Study 



123 



building, her suit of salt, pepper and mustard renders her invisible to the 

 keen eyes of birds of prey. Only when she is flying, does she show her 

 blackbird characteristics, — her tail 

 being long and of obvious use as a 

 steering organ ; and she walks with 

 long, stiff strides. The red-wings 

 are ever to be found in and about 

 swamps and marshes. The nest is 

 built usually in May ; it is made of 

 grasses, stalks of weeds and is lined 

 with finer grass or reeds. It is 

 bulky and is placed in low bushes 

 or among the reeds. The eggs are 

 pale blue, streaked and spotted with 

 purple or black . The young resem- 

 ble the mother in color, the males 

 being obliged to wait a year for 

 their epaulets. As to the food of 

 the red-wings here in the North, 

 Mr. Forbush says : 



"Although the red-wings almost 

 invariably breed in the swamp or 

 marsh, they have a partiality for 

 open fields and plowed lands ; how- 

 ever, most of the blackbirds that 

 nest in the smaller swamps adjacent 

 to farm lands get a large share of 

 their food from the farmer's fields. 

 They forage about the fields and 

 meadows when they first come 

 north in the spring. Later, they 

 follow the plow, picking up grubs, 

 worms and caterpillars ; and should 

 there be an outbreak of canker- 

 worms in the orchard, the black- 

 birds will fly at least half a mile to 

 get canker-worms for their young. 

 Wilson estimated that the red- 

 wings of the United States would 

 in four months destroy sixteen 



thousand two hundred million 5r^« mother red-wing, her mst and nestlings. 

 larvffi. They eat the caterpillars ^'^*° ^^ ^- ^- a"«^°- 



of the gypsy moth, the forest tent-caterpillar, and other hairy larvae. They 

 are among the most destructive birds to weevils, click beetles, and wire- 

 worms. Grasshoppers, ants, bugs, and flies form a portion of the red- 

 wing's food. They eat comparatively little grain in Massachusetts 

 although they get some from newly sown fields in spring, as well as 

 from the autumn harvest; but they feed very largely on the seeds of 

 weeds and wild rice in the fall. In the South they join with the bobolink 

 in devastating the rice fields, and in the West they are often so numerous 

 as to destroy the grain in the fields ; but here the good they do far out- 

 weighs the injury, and for this reason they are protected by law." 



