RED WINGED BLACKBIRD. 253 



beeches, were filled with their nests, which nearly without exception contained only one 

 egg. How persuasive and sweet sounded their melodious, loud, and rather high song-like 

 call-notes through the forest when they arrived in their breeding haunts from their foraging 

 tour! How suggestive of spring in all its beauty were these sounds, and what charm 

 did these notes and the drumming of the Ruffed Grouse lend to the glorious, almost un- 

 touched forest ! How do I long to hear these sounds again ! But alas ! they are silent 

 forever as are the whistling notes of the Bobwhite, and destroyed is the beauty of the 

 once so magnificent forests. The meadows swarmed with BoboUnks, and although not 

 jet exterminated, they have become quite rare of late. 



The birds of the swamps and the marshy borders of the lake were compai'atively 

 safe from intruding enemies. With the exception of the black water snake, the mink, 

 and the raccoon there was little to fear. The latter came here during the night to in- 

 dulge in hunting and catching cray-fishes. Although the ground swung up and down 

 under my feet near the edge of the lake and the outlet, there was so much to attract 

 me that I could not resist from penetrating the seclusion of the rank vegetation, where 

 gorgeous flowers, brilliant birds and butterflies, noisy katydids and restless dragon flies 

 abounded, and where numerous bullfrogs called out in loud and "echoing bellow, w'rroo, 

 'warroo, 'worwrroo, 'boaroo, which again was answered, or as it were, merely varied, 

 by the creaking or cackling voice of their feathered neighbors." Here Marsh Wrens, Ducks, 

 and other birds nested, and in August brilliant lobelias blossomed abundantly. There 

 was no firm footing, still I ventured on, hidden from all the w^orld at times by the tall 

 reeds, the silk-weed {Asclepias), the stately typha, and thickets of shrubs. The Swamp 

 Sparrow, the Maryland Yellow-throat, the Cedar-bird were often disturbed by me on 

 their nests, and the Great Blue Heron casted ominous shadows when taking wing. The 

 most characteristic inhabitants of such localities, however, were the Red-winged Black- 

 birds who were breeding in large colonies among the reeds and swamp grasses. Indeed, 

 they imparted to these and similar localities a beauty and life entirely their own, being 

 the most conspicuous features of all the marshes and swamps. 



In a former life-history I called the Bobolink the beauty and poetry of our grassy, 

 flower-adorned northern meadows. In the same sense the Red- winged Blackbird is an 

 almost ideal feathered inhabitant of our swamps and marshy lake borders. There would 

 be little charm about such localities were they not inhabited by these beautiful and 

 conspicuous birds. Since my earliest childhood this familiar bird is associated in my 

 mind with the typhas, the water-lilies, the blue flags, the reeds and bulrushes, the peat 

 and muck, the sphagnum moss and cranberry patches, and the nests of the muskrats. 



The Red-winged Blackbirds arrive early in their breeding haunts. I have seen 

 them in Sheboygan County, Wis., as early as March 10, and in northern Illinois by the 

 first of that mbnth. Large flocks were observed by me the 29th and 30th of January 

 at Freistatt, Lawrence Co., Mo. Although arriving sometimes in advance of the Robins, 

 they are rather irregular in their appearance, which is entirely dependent on the con- 

 dition of the weather. They appear in flocks from twenty to a hundred, and more, and 

 are frequently seen perching on an isolated tree, where everyone begins to utter its notes 

 at its utmost power. Some are calling out incessantly their characteristic con-^nr-ee, or 

 o-ka-lee, while many utter their whistling tu-tii and the rest their common call-notes tack, 



