Mar., 1922 FROM FIELD AND STUDY 61 
breeding season, as might be expected; for then their diet consists largely of insects, 
and a given territory will support only a definite number of families. During Septem- 
ber and October it is: discovered that there has occurred a shifting of the population, 
and at that time they are not at all common about my ranch near Calexico but are re- 
ported as then fairly swarming at the northern end of the valley, where the greatest 
damage is done to the maturing crop of kaffir corn and milo. The reason for this sea- 
sonal shifting is obscure, as those crops are raised to an equal extent at the southern 
end of the valley, but a significant fact is that a vast area between the irrigated land 
and the Salton Sea is covered with a wilderness of tules, in which the birds may roost, 
while at the southern end the tules seem to be limited to a narrow strip along the river. 
At about the time that the last of the kaffir corn is being harvested, the red-wings 
reappear in the vicinity of Calexico in large numbers. There are then no great fields 
of standing grain in which several thousand birds may sink without a trace; the bulk 
of the crop has been sacked for export, and what is needed for winter feeding is left 
“in the head” and placed in piles handy to the feed lot. Obviously, no farmer will view’ 
with equanimity the descent upon his corn pile of a couple of thousand red-wings, and 
law or no law, he will get down his shotgun. Whether from this likely cause or a more 
obscure one, the birds disperse after the harvest is over and congregate in small flocks, 
each numbering a few dozen individuals, in the neighborhood of the feed lots, where, 
with the cowbirds and towhees, they partake of a hearty meal of corn morning and eve- 
ning, but spend the greater portion of the day about other business. 
Whether the red-wings roost to any extent in the river tules near my ranch I am 
unable to state; but certain it is that they did not do so in the rank patch of this growth, 
fifty feet square, that formerly filled my horse pond. Rather did they repair for the 
night with a flock of feral guinea fowl] to the protection of a large cottonwood, and dur- 
ing the short time in winter when this is totally without leaves, probably to a row of 
eucalyptus trees some distance away. During the hottest part of the day, they are in 
the habit of gathering in an exceedingly garrulous assemblage in the top of a cotton- 
wood or other shady tree; or, as often, I have seen a flock of several hundred tak- 
ing their siestas strung along the ground beneath the arrow-weed growing on a big ditch 
bank. 
At the Colorado River, in January of 1913, I examined many old red-wing nests 
situated in tules, which latter, as far as I cGbserved, were always growing in little sloughs 
that were partly shaded by willows, and hence the nests were protected from the full 
force of the spring sun during at least a part of the day. I know of no such associa- 
tional conditions in the Imperial Valley, and the tules along the New River are un- 
shaded. Although these grow in a particularly dense tangle, certain it is that the red- 
wings do not nest in this situation near my ranch. Ags the birds were particularly com- 
mon, I was at a loss to discover just where they do nest, until May 6, when A. van Ros- 
sem noted several carrying nesting material into a cottonwood fully sixty feet above 
the ground; and we subsequently found that a considerable number had taken up their 
abode in this lone tree. The inference is that if the birds had at any time begun to nest 
in their usual tule location, they were speedily forced to change their abodes; for I am 
firmly convinced that unless they nested close to the ground, where they would be sub- 
ject to the depredations of foraging raccoons and skunks, the intense fervor of the Im- 
perial sun would be too much for them. Hence, the logical alternative would be the 
cooler protection of the cottonwood. 
On the economic status of the red-wings of this district I am unqualified to speak. 
Their food must be secured with unusually slight effort, for in a large proportion of in- 
dividuals, the culmen is found to project considerably beyond the gonys, sometimes to a 
marked extent, and this condition is caused by the lack of the wear and tear usually en- 
countered in gaining a livelihood. It cannot be gainsaid that these birds do an enor- 
mous amount of damage at certain seasons in certain districts, and that controlling 
measures will probably have to be adopted. But a word should be said in their de- 
fense. The yellow alfalfa butterfly is a serious pest, and I strongly suspect that when 
a flock of a hundred of the black fellows wheels over a field and settles into the waving 
alfalfa, the birds are seeking the festive caterpillar.—A. BRaAZIER HOWELL, Pasadena, Cal- 
ifornia, December 1, 1921, 
