RED-WINGED STARLING. 198 
we shall be at no loss to ascertain accurately their true 
character. 
The red-winged starlings, though generally migratory 
in the States north of Maryland, are found during 
winter in immense flocks, sometimes associated with 
the purple grakles, and often by themselves, along the 
whole lower parts of Virginia, both Carolinas, Georgia, 
and Louisiana, particularly near the sea coast, and in 
the vicinity of large rice and corn fields. In the 
months of January and February, while passing through 
the former of these countries, I was frequently enter- 
tained with the aerial evolutions of these great bodies 
of starlings. Sometimes they appeared driving about 
like an enormous black cloud carried before the 
wind, varying its shape every moment. Sometimes 
suddenly rising from the fields around me with a noise 
like thunder ; while the glittering of innumerable wings 
of the brightest vermilion amid the black cloud they 
formed, produced on these occasions a very striking 
and splendid effect. Then descending like a torrent, 
and covering the branches of some detached grove, or 
clump of trees, the whole congregated multitude com- 
menced one general concert or chorus, that I have 
plainly distinguished at the distance of more than two 
miles ; and, when listened to at the intermediate space 
of about a quarter of a mile, with a slight breeze of 
wind to swell and soften the flow of its cadences, was 
to me grand, and even sublime. The whole season of 
winter, that, with most birds, is past in struggling to 
sustain life in silent melancholy, is, with the red-wings, 
one continued carnival. The profuse gleanings of the 
old rice, corn, and buckwheat fields, supply them with 
abundant food, at once ready and nutritious ; and the 
intermediate time is spent either in aerial manoeuvres, 
or in grand vocal performances, as if solicitous to 
supply the absence of all the tuneful summer tribes, 
and to cheer the dejected face of nature with their 
whole combined powers of harmony. 
About the 20th of March, or earlier, if the season be 
open, they begin to enter Pennsylvania in numerous, 
VOL. i. n 7 
