136 THE Birps Axsout Us. 
ivory-white eye that is very beautiful. When seen 
at a distance the bird appears of a uniform jetty 
black. Judging from the accounts of the earlier 
writers, they are not as abundant now as in the early 
years of the century. Wilson speaks of a flock of 
one hundred thousand birds. This is several points 
better than any recent experience can show. In 
early spring the grakles appear in little colonies, and 
choosing a cluster of trees that offers security, they 
build many nests in close proximity; and the care 
exercised in keeping their voracious offspring sup- 
plied with food shows how devoted they are to their 
own flesh and blood. From early morning until it is 
quite dark the parent birds pass out into the fields, 
and soon return with a grasshopper or fat grub, and 
then out again for more. This is kept up with a 
regularity that is interesting for several reasons. I 
have often timed them, and the period of absence 
from the nest is remarkably uniform. Having de- 
termined how many insects are brought to the nest in 
a given ten minutes, a very close calculation can be 
made as to the amount of food consumed in a “ day” 
of about ten hours. It needs no slaughtering of scores 
of birds to determine such facts as these, and I am 
not sure if the eyes are not better than the shot-gun 
to determine the feeding habits of nearly all our 
birds. That grakles pull up sprouting corn can 
hardly be questioned, but if the corn be tarred they 
leave it alone, and while walking between the rows 
they feed upon cutworms innumerable. The doleful 
accounts of the destruction of the corn crop by these 
birds, as given by Wilson and repeated by Nuttall, 
