OUR BLACKBIRDS.

I have in mind the delta of a river whose shores are so level that it is a constant struggle whether land or water shall prevail. The river finds its way to the broad harbor through a dozen or more channels, between which are low islands overgrown with great trees burdened and festooned with grapevines and moss, and tangled with thickets and rank fernbrakes, or growths of wild rice and luxuriant water-weeds so dense and tall as to be impenetrable to even a canoe. Here blooms the magnificent lotus (Nelumbium luteum), with its corolla as large as your hat and its leaf half a boat-length broad—great banks of it, which give out a sweet, faint, intoxicating odor.

Curious sounds reach you as you thread the mazes of the swamp. The water boils up from the oozy bottom, and the bubbles break at the surface with a faint lisping sound: the reeds softly rattle against one another like the rustle of heavy silks, and you can hear the lily-pads and deeply-anchored stems of the water-weeds rubbing against one another. More articulate noises strike your ear—the sharp-clucking lectures on propriety of the mud-hen to its young; the brek-kek-kek, coaz-coaz of the frog; the splash of a tumbling turtle; the rushing of a flock of startled ducks rising on swift wings; the sprightly contagious laughter of those little elves the marsh-wrens, teetering on the elastic leaves of the cat-tails.

No birds are more characteristic of such a reedy tract than the blackbirds, of which there are several more or less common species in different parts of the country. The most striking of all, in the eastern half of the Union, is

THE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD.

The red-wing's favorite resort is the vicinity of water where the rushes grow densely, among which he places his nest; but the little swales in the meadows, where tufts of rank grass flourish upon islands formed by the roots of previous years' growth, and a few stunted alders and cranberry-bushes shade the black water, are nearly always sure to be the home of a few pairs. Such extensive marshes as I have just described are, however, the great centres of blackbird population, where they breed, where they collect in great hordes of young and old as the end of the season approaches, and whence they repair to the neighboring fields of Indian corn to tear open the husks and pick the succulent kernels. In September I have seen them literally in tens of thousands wheeling about the inundated wild-rice fields bounding the western end of Lake Erie, their black backs and gay red epaulets glistening in the sun "like an army with banners." The Canadian voyageurs call them "officer-birds," and the impression of an army before him is always strong upon the beholder as he gazes at these prodigious flocks in autumn; and it is extremely interesting to watch the swift evolutions of the crowded ranks, and observe the regularity and concert of action which governs the movements of the splendidly uniformed birds.

The red-wings are among the earliest of our spring visitors, and south of the Ohio River and Washington may be found all through the winter. Their loud and rollicking spring note is familiar to every one in the country. Conk-quiree! conk-quiree! sings out the male, as though he knew a good story if only he had a mind to tell it; and then adds Chuck! as though he thought it of no use to try to interest you in it, and that he had been indiscreet in betraying an enthusiasm beneath his dignity over a matter beyond your appreciation. His plain brown mate immediately says Chuck! too, quite agreeing with her lord and master that it is not best to waste their confidence upon you.

The centre of all their interest is the compact, tight basket woven of wet grass-blades and split rush-leaves which is supported among the reeds or rests on a tussock of wire-grass surrounded by water. It is a model nest, and they understand so well the labor it cost that they are mightily jealous of harm coming to it. The eggs are five in number, of a faded blue tint, marbled, streaked and spotted with leather-color and black, in shape rather elongated and pointed. The fledglings are abroad about the first of June, when the parents proceed to the production of another blood.

These blackbirds have the bump of domesticity largely developed, and if their household is disturbed they make a terrible fuss, calling upon all Nature to witness their sorrow and execrate the wretch that is violating their privacy.

During all the spring season, and particularly while the young are being provided for, the red-wings subsist almost exclusively on worms, grubs, caterpillars and a great variety of such sluggish insects and their voracious larvæ as do great damage to the roots and early sprouts of whatever the farmer plants, nor do they abandon this diet until the ripening of the wild rice and maize in the fall. "For these vermin," says Wilson, "the starlings search with great diligence in the ground at the roots of plants in orchards and meadows, as well as among buds, leaves and blossoms; and from their known voracity the multitudes of these insects which they destroy must be immense. Let me illustrate this fact by a short computation: If we suppose each bird on an average to devour fifty of these larvæ in a day (a very moderate allowance), a single pair in four months, the usual time such food is sought after, will devour upward of 12,000. It is believed that not less than a million pair of these birds are distributed over the whole extent of the United States in summer, whose food, being nearly the same, would swell the amount of vermin destroyed to 12,000,000,000. But the number of young birds may be fairly estimated at double that of their parents; and as these are constantly fed on larvæ for three weeks, making only the same allowance for them as for the older ones, their share would amount to 42,000,000,000, making a grand total of 54,000,000,000 of noxious insects destroyed in the space of four months by this single species! The combined ravages of such a hideous host of vermin would be sufficient to spread famine and desolation over a wide extent of the richest, best-cultivated country on the earth."

The yellow-headed blackbird belongs properly north-west of Lake Superior, but frequently gets into Michigan and Illinois. The bright yellow head and neck make it very noticeable if seen. Its habits are essentially those of the red-wing.

We have another set of blackbirds of greater size, commonly known as "crow" blackbirds, but which in the books are called grakles. There are several species, but none are greatly different from that too-common pest of our cornfields,

THE PURPLE GRAKLE.

The real home of the grakles is along the edges of the swamps—not among the reeds where the red-wing and bobolink sit and swing, but rather in the bushes and trees skirting the muddy shores. They build their nests in a variety of positions, but usually a convenient fork in an alder-bush is chosen, twenty or thirty pairs often nesting within a radius of a hundred feet. The nest is a rude, strong affair of sticks and coarse grass-stalks lined with finer grass, and looks very bulky and rough beside the neat structure of the red-wing; which illustrates how much better a result can be produced by an artistic use of the same material. In the case of both these birds, however, the female does not wear the jetty, iridescent coat which adorns the head of the family and reflects the sunlight in a thousand prismatic tints, but hides herself and the home she cares for by affecting a dull, brown-black, streaked suit, assimilating her closely with the surrounding objects. This protective coloration of plumage is possessed by the females of many species of birds, which would be very conspicuous, and of course greatly liable to danger while incubating their eggs, if they wore the bright tints of the males. The tanager and indigo-bird afford prominent examples. Sometimes the crow blackbirds make their homes at a distance from the water, and occasionally they choose odd places, such as the tops of tall pine trees, the spires of churches, martin-boxes in gardens and holes in trees. The latter situation is one which the bronzed blackbird of the Mississippi Valley (var. Æneus) especially makes use of.

Grakles' eggs are among the first on every boy's string, and until he gains experience the young collector supposes he has almost as many different species represented as he has specimens, so much do they differ, even in the same nestful, in respect to color, shape and size. Their length averages about 1.25 by .90 of an inch, but some are long, slender and pointed, while others are round, fat, and blunt at both ends. The ground color may be any shade of dirty white, light blue, greenish or olive brown; the markings consist of sharply-defined spots and confused blotches, scratches and straggling lines of obscure colors, from blue-black to lilac and rusty brown—sometimes scantily and prettily marbled upon the surface of the egg, and sometimes painted on so thick as to wholly conceal the ground color.

The crow blackbirds are in the advance-guard of the returning hosts of spring, making their appearance in small scattering flocks, and announcing their presence by loud smacks frequently repeated. They obtain most of their food from the ground, and walk about with great liveliness, scratching up the leaves, turning over chips and poking about the pastures for insects and seeds softened by the spring rains. Their destruction of insects—especially during May, when their young are in the nest—is enormous; yet their forays upon the cornfields, I fear, overbalance the good done the farmer by putting an end to grubs noxious to his crops.

"The depredations committed by these birds are almost wholly on Indian corn at different stages. As soon as its blades appear above the ground after it has been planted, the grakles descend upon the fields, pull up the tender plant and devour the seeds, scattering the green blades around. It is of little use to attempt to drive them away with a gun: they only fly from one part of the field to another. And again, as soon as the tender corn has formed, these flocks, now replenished by the growing of the year, once more swarm in the cornfields, tear off the husks and devour the tender grains. Wilson has seen fields of corn in which more than half the corn was thus ruined.

"These birds winter in immense numbers in the lower parts of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia, sometimes forming one congregated multitude of several hundred thousand. On one occasion Wilson met, on the banks of the Roanoke, on the 20th of January, one of these prodigious armies of crow blackbirds. They arose, he states, from the surrounding fields with a noise like thunder, and descending on the length of the road before him, they covered it and the fences completely with black: when they again rose, and after a few evolutions descended on the skirts of the high-timbered woods, they produced a most singular and striking effect. Whole trees, for a considerable extent, from the top to the lowest branches, seemed as if hung with mourning. Their notes and screaming, he adds, seemed all the while like the distant sounds of a great cataract, but in a musical cadence."

Ernest Ingersoll.