tack. This music seems something betwixt chattering and warbling, and there is so 

 much confusion in this mad concert of spring that its impression is as unique as it is 

 pleasant. There are often other notes heard, reminding one of saw-filing or the sound of a 

 rusty hinge. The whole constitutes, as Mr. Nuttall says, a novel and grand chorus of 

 discord and harmony, in which the performers seem in good earnest, and bristle up 

 their feathers, as if inclined at least, to make up in quantity what their show of music 

 may lack in quality. This concert can sometimes be heard for an hour or more if the 

 weather be fair and is noticed at a distance of more than a mile. The birds look like dark 

 clouds when they settle on a tree, and they present in their spring dress a very grand 

 and imposing appearance, besides their filling the air with the matchless charm of their 

 unique spring music. The first flocks which appear from the South consist of males; the 

 females arrive from eight to ten days later. 



I have observed them throughout the winter in vast swarms from Florida to 

 south-eastern Texas. They frequent chiefly the sugar-cane and corn-fields, where they 

 move about like black clouds, rising suddenly when disturbed with a thunder-like noise 

 "and exhibiting amidst the broad shadows of their dark plumage, the bright flashing 

 of the Vermillion with which their wings are so singularly decorated. After whirling a 

 little distance, they descend as a torrent, and darkening the branches of the trees by 

 their numbers, they commence a general concert that may be heard for more than two 

 miles" and which is quite similar to that of their spring arrival to which I have alluded. 

 During the evening they retreat to their roosts in swamps, .thickly covered with trees 

 and shrubs, or to the dense woods in the low-lands. In the morning they leave their 

 roosts at day -break ; the immense swarms separate into smaller ones, which fly in ali 

 directions to forage. Near Houston, Texas, I often observed Yellow-headed Blackbir^ff 

 and Cowbirds among the sw^arms of Redwings. 



On the Atlantic coast they are found wintering firom Virginia southward, ^/par 

 the sea coast they frequent old fields of rice and com. "Wilson, passing in Jaj^i^ary 

 through the lower regions of Virginia, firequently witnessed the aerial evolutj^ps ' of 

 great bodies of these birds. Sometimes they appeared as if driven about ^ke an 

 enormous black cloud carried before the wind, varying every moment in shape, Some- 

 times they rose up suddenly from the fields with a noise like thunder. At times the 

 whole congregated multitude would suddenly alight in some detached grov© and com- 

 mence one general concert, that he could plainly distinguish at a distance of more than 

 two miles, and when listened to at a distance of a quarter of a mile, the flow of its 

 cadences was grand, and even sublime. The whole winter season seems one continued 

 carnival. They find abundant food in the old fields, and much of their time is spent in 

 aerial movements, or in grand vocal peribrmances. 



The breeding range of this Blackbird is a very large one, exteiiding from Florida 

 and south-eastern Texas northward to the Great Slave Lake and from the Atlantic 

 west to the Pacific. In winter it is found south to Costa Rica. In southern Florida 

 and the Gulf coast of Louisiana it is represented by the very similar Bahama Redwing. 



After their arrival in the North small flocks are roving around in the country until 

 May, when they separate in pairs and each pair moves into its own quarters. They 

 are found in almost every marsh and small swamp covered with a few bushes and a 



