RED-WING ED ST i.RLING
must be ill Calculable. When the corn is reaped, they assume the
right of gleaning m the fields, and not content with this privilege,
they afterwards follow the crop to the farm-yard, and there too pilfer
all that they can from the harvest-home. Any indirect benefit therefore
that they may have been of, is lost sight of in t h e presence of
t h e direct injury, and tens of thousands of the marauding multitudes
are slaughtered, though still no apparent diminution is made. At
night the reed-beds are set fire to, a n d as t h e cloud of birds rises
from it, a regiment of shooters discharge volley after volley, and the
field is strewn with the slain. In like manner the Indians, who
usually plant their corn in one common field, employ all t h e boys
of the village throughout the day in tending their growing crop,
and, each armed with a bow a n d arrows, these incipient Lockeslcys
contrive with great experluess to destroy large numbers. The Hawks
too of various kinds dash into their close ranks, and though the
flock instantly opens on all sides, on t h e principle of 'sauve qui
pent." some are almost sure to become victims.
Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucien Buonaparte, in their 'American
Ornithology,' give the following calculation of the good effected
by these birds in r e t u r n for whatever grain they may consume:—
' T h e i r general food at this season, as well as during the early part
of summer, consists of caterpillars and various other larva?, the silenl
but deadly enemies of all vegetation, and whose secret and insidious
attacks are more to be dreaded by the husbandman than the combined
forces of the whole feathered tribe together. For these vermin
the Starlings search with great diligence, in the ground, at the roots
of plants, in orchards and meadow-, as well as among buds, leaves,
and blossoms, and from their known voracity, the multitudes of those
insects which they destroy must be immense. Let me illustrate this
by a short computation; if we suppose each bird, on an average, to
devour fifty of these larvae in a day, (a very moderate allowance,)
a single pair, in four months, the usual time such food is sought
aI'ler, will consume upwards of twelve thousand. It is believed that
not less than a million pair of these birds arc 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
twelve thousand millions. But the number of young birds may be
fairlv estimated at double that of their parents, and as these are
constantly fed on larva; for at least three weeks, making only the
same allowance for them as for t h e old ones, their share would
amount to four thousand two hundred millions; making a grand
total of sixteen thousand two h u n d r e d millions of noxious insects de-
R ED-WINGED STARLING. 29
stroved 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 t h e richest a nd
best cultivated country on earth.
All this, it may be said, is mere supposition. It i s , however, supposition
founded on known and acknowledged facts. I have never
dissected any of these birds in spring without receiving the most
striking and satisfactory proof of these facts; and though, in a matter
of this kind, it is impossible to ascertain precisely the amount of t he
benefits derived by agriculture from this, and many other species of
our birds, yet in the present case, I cannot resist the belief, that the
services of this species, in spring, are far more important and beneficial
than the value of all that portion of corn which a careful and active
farmer permits himself to lose by it.'
The Red-winged Starlings are very vociferous, even in the depth
of winter, so that the dejected face of nature is enlivened by their
ceaseless notes, and likewise during their migrations a constant strain
of conversation is kept up, which, as harbingiug the r e t u r n of spring,
is a welcome sound even to those who are doomed to suffer from their
ravages. Their most common note resembles the syllables 'con-qiier-ree,'
others are like the sound produced by t h e filing of a saw, some are
more gutteral, and others remarkably clear: both male and female have
an ordinary 'chuck.'
About the middle of April the birds pair, and nidification commences
the last week in April, or the beginning of May, or even later,
according to the latitude in which they may happen to be.
The nest is placed variously in a bush or tree, a few feet from t he
ground, or in a tussock of rushes or tuft of grass, or even, and not
infrequently, on the ground. It is composed of rushes and long tough
grass, and lined with finer portions of the l a t t e r ; the rushes are interlaced
among the surrounding twigs if in a tree, or among the rushes
if on the ground, in which latter case the whole structure is less
elaborate than in the former. Several nests are often built in immediate
neighbourhood to each other.
The eggs, about five in number, are of a pale bluish wdiite colour,
encircled at the larger end with spots and streaks of d a r k reddish
brown, with a few others scattered here and t h e r e , and some faint
blots of purple grey and lines and dashes of black. J. R. D e Capel
Wise, ESq, has forwarded me a specimen.
Male; length, nine inches; bill, shining black, it runs a considerable
distance u p the forehead, and is rather prominent there; iris, dark brown;
head, crown, neck on t h e back, and nape, black; chin, throat, a nd