THE BLACK-BIKDS. 
49 
year. Whatever your roving fancies may say, there is a virtue in 
constancy which has a reward above all that fickle change can 
bestow, giving strength and purity to every affection of life, and 
even throwing additional grace about the flowers which bloom in 
our native fields. We admire the strange and brilUant plant of 
the green-house, but we love most the simple flowers we have 
loved of old, Avhich have bloomed many a spring, through rain and 
sunshine, on our native soil. 
Radishes from the hot-beds to-day. 
Thursday, 21 th. — A flock of the msty black-bird or grakles 
about the village ; they have been roving to and fro several days. 
We generally see these birds for a short time in autumn and spring, 
but they do not remain here. They move in flocks, and attract 
attention whenever they are in the neighborhood, by perching to- 
gether on some tree. Half those now here are brown ; both the 
females and the younger males being of this color : there is a 
great diff'erence, also, between the males and females, as regards 
size. 
All kinds of black-birds are rare here ; they are said to have 
been very numerous indeed at the settlement of the country, but 
have very much diminished in numbers of late years. And yet, 
they are still very common in some of the oldest parts of the 
country, where they are a very great annoyance to the farmers. 
These rusty grakles are northern birds ; the common black-bird, 
occasionally seen here in small parties, comes from the south. 
The red wino- black-bird or starhng;, we have never seen in this 
county ; it may possibly be found here, but certainly is not 
so common as elsewhere. Nor is the cow-bunting often seen 
with us ; and as all these birds are more or less gregarious, they 
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