60 BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 



east, and is so similar in appearance and habits that the eastern 

 observer in California forgets that it is not the same species. It 

 nests in bushes, weeds, and sometimes in trees, and is so gregarious 

 that several nests are often built in the same vicinity. Large colonies 

 frequently establish themselves near farm buildings, and feed freely 

 in the stock yards and cultivated fields. When fruit is ripe these 

 blackbirds do not hesitate to take a share, and they visit the orchard 

 daily for the early cherries. 



They claim a share of grain also, but do not appear to eat it at 

 harvest time so much as afterwards. Mr. Walter K. Fisher, writing 

 from Stockton, Calif., on November 12, 1897, reports them as feeding 

 on newly sown wheat that had not been harrowed in, eating nearly 

 all thus left exposed. He describes the birds as in such immense 

 flocks in the grain fields that at a distance they looked like smoke 

 rising from the ground, and says that stomachs of birds taken were 

 full of wheat. On the other hand, Prof. A. J. Cook, of Claremont, 

 Calif., says that he considered it one of the most valuable species 

 in the State; and Mr. J. F. Illingsworth, of Ontario, Calif., in a paper 

 read before the Pomona Farmers' Club, a speaks of it as a beneficial 

 bird, which should be protected. Mr. O. E. Bremner, State horti- 

 cultural inspector, in a letter to the Biological Survey, says: 



The cankerworm episode is quite a common one with us here. In one district, 

 Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County, there has been a threatened invasion of the 

 prune trees by spring cankerworms several times, but each time the blackbirds came 

 to the rescue and completely cleaned them out. I have often seen bands of black- 

 birds working in an infested orchard. They work from tree to tree, clearing them 

 out as they go. If a worm tries to escape by webbing down, they will dive down and 

 catch him in mid-air. 



During the cherry season the writer observed these birds in the 

 orchards, and collected a number of them. They were seen to eat 

 freely of cherries, and the stomachs of those taken showed that a 

 goodly proportion of the food consisted of cherry pulp. While these 

 observations were being made, a neighboring fruit raiser began to 

 plow his orchard. Almost immediately every blackbird in the vicin- 

 ity was upon the newly opened ground, and many followed within 

 a few feet of the plowman's heels in their eagerness to get every 

 grub or other insect turned out by the plow. On another occasion , 

 an orchard was being watched while the far side was being plowed. 

 A continual flight of blackbirds was passing in both directions over 

 the observer's head, and practically all of them alighted on the newly 

 plowed ground, fed there for a while, and then returned, probably 

 to their nests. When plowing was finished and harrowing began, 

 the blackbirds immediately changed their foraging ground, and fol- 

 lowed the harrow as closely as they had accompanied the plow. 



a Ontario Observer, June 3, 1899. 



