BLACKBIRDS 209 



is often considerably injured by these blackbirds. Weed seed 

 is apparently the favorite food of the red-wings, since the total 

 amount of grass and weeds is 54.6 per cent, more than half of 

 the year's food, and more than four times the total grain 

 consumption. Summing up the bird's status, he says: 



"Judged by the contents of its stomach alone, the red-wing 

 is most decidedly a Useful bird. The service rendered by the 

 destruction of noxious insects and weed seeds far outweighs the 

 damage due to its consumption of grain. The destruction that 

 it sometimes causes must be attributed entirely to its too great 

 abundance in some localities.* 



FLORIDA RED-WING: Agelaitis phoeniceus phoenicetis 



(Linnaeus) .f 



State records. — The Florida red-wing occupies the southern 

 part of Alabama as far north as Russell CJounty. It differs 

 from the northern subspecies (predatorius) in smaller size 

 and intergrades with that form in the central part of the 

 State. It is moderately common in the wet marshes of Mobile 

 Bay and Perdido Bay, and very numerous on Grande Batture 

 and Petit Bois Islands. Specimens have been examined from 

 Petit Bois Island, Alabama Port, Mobile Bay, Dothan. and 

 Scale. Nests with eggs were found at Grande Batture, May 

 23, 1911, and at Seale, May 22, 1914. 



NORTHERN RED-WING: Agelomis phoeniceus arctolegus 



Oberholser.J 



The northern red-wing — ^the form breeding in western 

 Canada and south to Minnesota and Michigan — is known in 

 Alabama only from a single specimen collected by the writer 

 at Barachias, March 25, 1912. Further collecting will doubt- 

 less show it to occur more or less regularly as a winter 

 visitant. 



•Beal, F. B. L., Biol. Surv. Bull. IS, pp. S3-34. 1900. 



fAgeUius phoeniceus fioridanus of the A. O. U. Check-list; for change of name see 



The Auk, vol. 34, p. 204, 1917. ^ . , , „„ „^„ 



tFor use of this name, see The Auk, vol. 86, p. 269, 1919. 



