PUHPLE GRAKLE. 
229 
f.ire. I have seen fields of corn of many acres, where 
more than one-half was thus ruined. Indeed the 
fai-Biers in the immediate vicinity of the rivers Dela- 
^vare and Schuylkill, generally allo(v one-fourth of this 
crop to the blackbirds, among whom our grakle comes 
iu for his full share. During these depredations, the 
gun is making great havoc among their numbers, which 
has no other cli'ect on the survivors than to send them 
to another field, or to another part of the same field. 
This system of plunder and of retaliation continues 
Until Xoveiuber, when, towards the middle of that 
mouth, they begin to sheer otf to\var(ls the south. The 
lower parts of Virginia, North and South Carolina, 
and Georgia, are the winter residences of these docks. 
Hero numerous bodies, collecting together from all 
(juarters of the interior and northern distri(;ts, and 
darkening the air with their numbers, sometimes form 
oi\c congregated multitude of many hundred thousands. 
A few ]uiies from the banks of the lloanoke, on the 
20th of January, I met with one of those prodigious 
armies of grakles. Tliey rose from the surrounding 
fields with a noise like thunder, and, descending on the 
length of road before me, covered it and the fences 
completely with black, aud when they again rose, and, 
after a few evolutions, descended on the skirts of the 
high timbered woods, at that time destitute of leaves, 
they produced a most singular and striking efifect ; the 
tvhole trees for a considerable extent, trom the top to 
the lowest branches, seeming as if hung iu mourning; 
their notes and screaming the meanwhile resembling 
tile disfiuit sound of a groat cataract, but in more 
musical cadence, swelling and dying away on the ear, 
according to the finctnatioii of the breeze. In Kentucky, 
and all along the Mississi]>pi, from its juncture with the 
Ohio to the Balize, 1 found numbers of these birds, so 
that the purple grakle may he cousiilercd as a very 
general inhabitant of the territory of the United States. 
Every industrious farmer complains of the mischief 
committed on his corn l)y the crow blackbirds, as they 
are usually called ; though, were the same means used. 
