05 FOOD OF BOBOLINK, BLACKBIRDS, AND GRACKLES. 



where they had been thrown. Hence, it seems fair to infer that the 

 grackle indulg-es its nest-robbing proclivities onlj^ occasionally, and 

 that the prevalence of the habit has been considerabl}^ exaggerated. 



The crow blackbird, by reason of its habits, numbers, and wide dis- 

 tribution over the eastern part of our country, is so conspicuous 

 among the native birds that much valuable information concerning 

 its food habits is contained in previous publications. 



AVilson refer.s to it as a 'noted depredator' that 'is well known to 

 every careful farmer of the Northern and Middle States,' and says: 



About the 20th of ]\Iarch the purple grakles visit Pennsylvania from the south, fly 

 in loose flocks, frequent swamps and meadows, and follow in the furrows after the 

 plough; their food at this season consisting of worms, grubs, and caterpillars, of 

 which they destroy prodigious numbers, as if to recompense the husbandman before- 

 hand for the havoc they intend to make among his crops of Indian corn. * * * 

 The trees where these birds l)uild are often at no great distance from the farm house, 

 and overlook the plantations. From thence they issue, in all directions, and with as 

 much confidence, to make their daily depredations among the surrounding fields, as 

 if the whole were intended for their use alone. Their chief attention, however, is 

 directed to the Indian corn in all its progressive stages. As soon as the infant blade 

 of this grain begins to make its appearance above ground, the grakles hail the wel- 

 come signal with screams of peculiar satisfaction, and, without waiting for a formal 

 invitation from the proprietor, descend on the fields and begin to pull up and regale 

 themselves on the seed, scattering the green blades around. * * * About the 

 beginning of August, when the young eare are in their milky state, they are attacked 

 W'ith redoubled eagerness by the grakles and redwings," in foimidable and combined 

 bodies. They descend like a blackening, sweeping tempest on the corn, dig off the 

 external covering of twelve or fifteen coats of leaves, as dexterously as if done by the 

 hand of man, and, having laid bare the ear, leave little behind to the farmer but the 

 cobs, and shriveled skins, that contained their favorite fare. I have seen fields of 

 corn of many acres, where more than one-half was thus ruine<l. Indeed the farmers 

 in the immediate vicinity of tiie rivers Delaware and Schuylkill, generally allow one- 

 fourth of this crop to the blackbirds, among whom our grakle comes in for his full 

 share. 



* * * As .some con.solation, however, to the industrious cultivator, I can a.^sure 

 him, that were I placed in his situation, I should hesitate whether to consider these 

 birds most as friends or enemies, as they are particularly destructive to almost all the 

 noxious worms, grubs, and caterpillai-s, that infest his fields, which, were they allowed 

 to multiply unmolested, would soon consume nine-tenths of all the production of his 

 labour, and desolate the country with the miseries of famine.' 



Nuttall speaks of the bird's destructiveness in the coi-nticld in nuich 

 the same terms, and adds: 



Up to the time tif harvest, I have uniformly, on dissection, found tlieir food to 

 consist of these larva', caterpillai-s, moths, and Ijeetles, of which they devour such 

 numbers, that but for this providential economy, the whole crop of grain, in many 

 places, would prol)ably l)e destroyed by the time it began to germinate. In winter 

 they collect the mast of the beech and oak for food, and may be seen assembled in 

 large bodies in the woods for this purpose.^ 



lAm. Ornith., Edinburgh ed., Vol. I, pp. 227-230, 1831. 

 -'Manual of Ornith., Land Birds, pp. iy5-l'JG, 1832. 



