RED-WINGED STARLING. 
89 
under the eye of the proprietor; and a farmer who has any con- 
siderable extent of corn would require half a dozen men at least 
with guns to guard it; and even then, all their vigilance and 
activity would not prevent a good tithe of it from becorning 
the prey of the Black-birds. The Indians, who usually plant 
their corn in one general field, keep the whole young boys of 
the village, all day patrolling round and among it; and each 
being furnished with bow and arrows, with which they are 
very expert, they generally contrive to destroy great numbers 
of them. 
It must however, be observed, that this scene of pillage is 
principally carried on in the low countries, not far from the sea- 
coast, or near the extensive flats that border our large rivers; 
and is also chiefly confined to the months of August and Sep- 
tember. After this period the corn having acquired its hard 
shelly coat, and the seeds of the reeds or wild oats, with a pro- 
fusion of other plants that abound along the river shores, being 
now ripe, and in great abundance, present a new and more ex- 
tensive field for these marauding multitudes. The reeds also 
supply them with convenient roosting places, being often in 
almost unapproachable morasses; and thither they repair every 
evening from all quarters of the country. In some places, how- 
ever, when the reeds become dry, advantage is taken of this cir- 
cumstance to destroy these birds by a party secretly approaching 
the place under cover of a dark night, setting fire to the reeds 
in several places at once, which being soon enveloped in one 
general flame the uproar among the Blackbirds becomes univer- 
sal, and by the light of the conflagration they are shot down in 
vast numbers; while hovering and screaming over the place. 
Sometimes straw is used for the same purpose, being previously 
strewed near the reeds and alder bushes where they are knoAvn 
to roost, which being instantly set on fire, the consternation and 
havock is prodigious; and the party return by day to pick up 
the slaughtered game. About the first of November they begin 
to move off towards the south; though near the sea coast, in the 
VOL. II. — M 
