136 
OUR HOME BIRDS. 
and desolate the country with the miseries of famine. 
Is not this another striking proof that the Deity has 
created nothing in vain ? and that it is the duty of 
man, the lord of the creation, to avail himself of their 
usefulness, and guard against their bad effects as 
securely as possible, without indulging in the bar- 
barous, and even impious, wish for their utter exter- 
mination V 
“ The winter home of these blackbirds is in the 
lower parts of Virginia, North and South Carolina, 
and Georgia, where they may often be seen collected 
together in vast armies rather than flocks, actually 
darkening the air with their numbers. When they 
rise for flight, the noise produced is like the rolling 
of thunder, and their descent blackens the road and 
the surrounding fences. Some one who has seen 
them in this way, says : ‘ When, after a few evolu- 
tions, they descended on the skirts of the high-tim- 
bered woods, at that time destitute of leaves, they 
produced a most singular and striking effect; the 
whole of the trees, for a considerable extent, from 
the top to the lowest branches, seemed as if hung in 
mourning ; their notes and screaming the mean while 
resembling the distant sound of a great cataract, but 
in more musical cadence, swelling and dying away 
on the ear according to the fluctuation of the breeze/ 
“ The purple grakle, like the crow, is easily tamed, 
