. Useful birds and their protection. Containing brief descriptions of the more common and useful species of Massachusetts, with accounts of their food habits, and a chapter on the means of attracting and protecting birds. Birds; Birds. 320 USEFUL caterpillars; and should there be an outbreak of canker- worms in the orchard, the Blackbirds will fly at least half a mile to get cankerworms for their young. Wilson estimated that the Eed-wings of the United States would in four months destroy sixteen thousand, two hundred million larvae. They eat the caterpillars of the gipsy moth, the fore
. Useful birds and their protection. Containing brief descriptions of the more common and useful species of Massachusetts, with accounts of their food habits, and a chapter on the means of attracting and protecting birds. Birds; Birds. 320 USEFUL caterpillars; and should there be an outbreak of canker- worms in the orchard, the Blackbirds will fly at least half a mile to get cankerworms for their young. Wilson estimated that the Eed-wings of the United States would in four months destroy sixteen thousand, two hundred million larvae. They eat the caterpillars of the gipsy moth, the forest tent caterpillar, and other hairy larvse. They are among the most destructive birds to weevils, click beetles, an d wire worms. Grasshoppers, ants, bugs, and flies form a portion of Fig. 143. —Red-winged the Redwings' food. They eat com- Biackbird,female,about parativeiy ^tle grain in Massachusetts, one-half natural size. tr j o although they get some from newly sown fields in spring, as well as from the autumn harvest; but they feed very largely on the seeds of weeds and wild rice in the fall. In the south they join with the Bobolink in devastating the rice fields, and in the west they are often so numerous as to destroy the grain in the fields ; but here the good they do far outweighs the injury, and for this reason they are protected by law. Cowbird. Cow Blackbird. Cow Bunting. Molothrus ater. Length. — Seven and one-half to about eight inches. Adult Male. — Lustrous black, with a rich, lustrous brown head and neck. Adult Female. — Brownish-gray, slightly darker on wings and tail. Nest. — That of some other bird. Eggs. — White, speckled all oyer with brown. Season. — April to October. This much-maligned bird, which builds no home of its own, and depends on others to hatch and rear its young, is, nevertheless, an essential part of nature's plan. Birds that rear their own young are confined by necessity to a certain radius about their nests ; but the scattered
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