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The Red-winged Blackbird 
there if you were to put a doctor’s thermometer in her mouth and 
have her hold it a little while, you would find it registered 110 de- 
grees. Should a doctor find a boy as hot as that his mother would 
indeed be worried. For the bird, however, this is nothing unusual, 
and remember, too, the little Blackbird’s heart beats more than 
twice as fast as the human heart. 
Although the Red-wings like to stay about the marshes, they 
also make their nests in bushes or trees along the river banks, and 
sometimes on the ground in meadows among the Bobolinks. At 
times only one Red-wing’s nest will be found in a neighborhood, 
and again if food is abundant as many as six or a dozen pairs may 
be found, and in some large marshes they will be scattered all over 
hundreds or thousands of acres. 
Wherever the Red-wing occurs in spring he is a jealous 
guardian of his eggs or young, and if a Hawk or Crow comes near 
he does not hesitate to rise in the air with all 
the appearance of doing battle to the great in- ^Bird^ 
truder of his solitude. Usually a boy can tell if 
he has come near a Red-wing’s nest, for one of the birds is sure to 
come out to meet him, scolding loudly as he approaches. This 
chatter of resentment is continued as long as the unwelcome visitor 
remains in the neighborhood. 
After the nesting season when the young are able to fly with 
their parents the Red-wings collect in flocks and wander about 
the country in search of food. As cold weather approaches the 
birds from the prairies and marsh-lands throughout the northern 
states and southern Canada begin to move southward. At this 
time they may be seen in flocks numbering tens of thousands, and 
they present a marvelous spectacle as they fly with all the precision 
of perfectly trained soldiers. I have seen fully thirty thousand of 
them while in full flight suddenly turn to the right or the left or 
at the same instance swoop downward as if they were all driven by 
common impulse. They perform many wonderful feats of flight 
when on the wing. Sometimes a long billow of moving birds will 
pass across the fields, the ends of the flying regiment alternately 
sinking and rising, or even appearing to tumble about like a sheet 
of paper in a high wind. In the southern states these great flocks 
may be seen at almost any time during the winter months. 
In feeding on the ground they progress slowly across the coun- 
try in a given direction. The birds at the back rise in a continuous 
cloud, and flying over their feeding friends, alight in the van of the 
army. Thus, like a vast wide black hoop, they roll across the peanut 
or millet fields, until reaching a thicket or wood, they all take wing 
