36 FOOD OF BOBOLINK, BLACKBIRDS, AND GKACKLES. 



Wilson, in speaking- of the food of the redwing, says: 



The whole season of winter, that, with most birds, is passed instrugghng to sustain 

 Ufe in silent melancholj', is, with the redwings, one continued carnival. The profuse 

 gleanings of the old rice, corn, and buckwheat fields, supply them with abundant 

 food, at once ready and nutritious. * * * Before the beginning of September, 

 these flocks have become numerous and formidable; and the young ears of maize, 

 or Indian corn, being then in their soft, succulent, milky state, present a temptation 

 that can not be resisted. Reenforced l^y numerous and daily flocks from all parts of 

 the interior, they pour down on the low countries in prodigious multitudes. Here 

 they are seen, like vast clouds, wheeling and driving over the meadows and devoted 

 cornfields, darkening the air with their numbers. Then commences the work of 

 destruction on the corn, the husks of which, * * * are soon completely or jiar- 

 tially torn off; while from all quarters myriads continue to pour down like a tempest, 

 blackening half an acre at a time; and, if not disturbed, repeat their depredations 

 till little remains but the cob and the shriveled skins of the grain; what little is 

 left of the tender ear, being exposed to the rains and weather, is generally much 

 injured. * * * 



It has been already stated, that they arrive in Pennsylvania late in March. Their 

 general food at this season, as well as during the early part of summer, * * * 

 consists of grubworms, caterpillars, and various other larvae, the silent, but deadly 

 enemies of all vegetation, and whose secret and insidious attacks are more to be 

 dreaded by the huslrandman than the combined forces of the whole feathered tribes 

 together. For these vermin, the starlings search with great diligence; in the ground, 

 at the roots of plants, in orchards, and meadows, as well as among buds, leaves, and 

 blossoms; and from their known voracity, the multitudes of these insects which they 

 destroy must be immense. Let me illustrate this by a short computation: If we 

 suppose each bird, on an average, to devour fifty of these larvaj in a day, (a very 

 moderate allowance,) a single i)air, in four months, the usual timesucli food is sought 

 after, will consume upward of twelve thousand. It is believed, that not less than a 

 million pair of these birds are distributed over the whole extent of the United States 

 in summer; whose food, l>eing nearly the same, would swell the amount of vermin 

 destroyed to twelve thousand millions. But the number of young birds may l)e 

 fairly estimated at double that of their parents; and, as these are constantly fed on 

 larvte for at least three weeks, making only the sjime allowance for them as for the 

 old ones, their share would amount to four thuiLsan<l two hundred millions; making 

 a grand total of sixteen thousand two hundred millions of noxious insects destroyed 

 in the space of four months by this single species! The combineil ravages of such a 

 hideous host of vermin would be suflicient to spread famine and desolation over a 

 wide extent of the richest and Iwjst cultivated country on earth. All this, it may be 

 said, is mere supposition. It is, however, supposition founded on known and 

 acknowledged facts. 1 have never dissected any of these birds in si)ring without 

 receiving the most striking and satisfactory proofs of these facts; and though, in a 

 matter of this kind, it is impossible to ascertain precisely the amount of the benefits 

 derived by agrit-ulture from this, and many other species of our birds, yet, in the 

 j)resent case, I can not resist the belief, that the services of this species, in spring, are 

 far more important and beneficial than the value of all that i)ortiou of corn which a 

 careful and active farmer permits himself to lose by it.^ 



Audubon, in speaking of this species, says: 



The marsh blackbird is so well known as being a bird of the most nefarious pro- 

 pensities, that in the United States one can hardly mention its name, without hearing 

 such an account of its pilferings as might induce the young student of nature to con- 

 ceive that it had been created for tlie purpose of annoying the farmer. That it 



'Am.Ornith., Edinburgh ed,. Vol. T.. pp. 10.1-198, 1831. 



