248 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



ground black with blackbirds (troopials?). As I ap- 

 proach, the front rank rises and flits a little further 

 back into the midst of the flock, — it rolls up on the 

 edges, — and, being thus alarmed, they soon take to 

 flight, with a loud rippling rustle, but soon alight again, 

 the rear wheeling swiftly into place like well-drilled 

 soldiers. Instead of being an irregular and disorderly 

 crowd, they appear to know and keep their places and 

 wheel with the precision of drilled troops. 



June 11, 1854. Saw in and near some woods fou|j or 

 five cow blackbirds, with their light-brown heads, — 

 their strain an imperfect, milky, gurgling conqueree, an 

 unsuccessful effort. It made me think, for some reason, 

 of streams of milk bursting out a sort of music between 

 the staves of a keg. 



July 13, 1856. In Hubbard's euphorbia pasture, cow 

 blackbirds about cows. At first the cows were resting 

 and ruminating in the shade, and no birds were seen. 

 Then one after another got up and went to feeding, 

 straggling into the midst of the field. With a chatter- 

 ing appeared a cowbird, and, with a long slanting flight, 

 lit close to a cow's nose, within the shadow of it, and 

 watched for insects, the cow still eating along and al- 

 most hitting it, taking no notice of it. Soon it is joined 

 by two or three more birds. 



Sept. 6, 1858. Going over Clamshell Plain, I see a 

 very large flock of a hundred or more cowbirds about 

 some cows. They whirl away on some alarm and alight 

 on a neighboring rail fence, close together on the rails, 

 one above another. Then away they whirl and settle on 

 a white oak top near me. Half of them are evidently 



