File:The birds of America - from drawings made in the United States and their territories (1840) (14568562079).jpg

Identifier: birdsofamericafr04audu (find matches)
Title: The birds of America : from drawings made in the United States and their territories
Year: 1840 (1840s)
Authors: Audubon, John James, 1785-1851 Bowen, John T., ca. 1801-1856?, lithographer
Subjects: Birds Birds
Publisher: New York : Published by J.J. Audubon Philadelphia : J.B. Chevalier
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Text Appearing Before Image:
ly. The first brood comesabroad about the beginning of June, the second in the beginning of August.At this latter period, the corn in the Middle Districts has already acquiredconsiderable consistence, and the congregated Redwings fall upon the fieldsin such astonishing numbers as to seem capable of completely veiling themunder the shade of their wings. The husbandman, anxious to preserve asmuch of his corn as he can, for his own use or for market, pursues everypossible method of annoyance or destruction. But his ingenuity is almostexerted in vain. The Redwings heed not his efforts further than to remove,after each report of his gun, from one portion of the field to another. Allthe scarec?%ows that he may choose to place about his grounds are merelyregarded by the birds as so many observatories, on which they occasionallyalight. The corn becoming too hard for their bills, they now leave the fields, andresort to the meadows and the margins of streams thickly overgrown with N°44 PI 216.
Text Appearing After Image:
U7//7 /.Ma/&ASult. 2. Te>unf MaUJfhrnal/ Zyli fJrmmjTwrrt /Katun H f iWiifrri ffl S FL S r-,*Jid PnrLM «f Col tv / Tffn*,.* P/uUd THE RED-WINGED STARLING. 33 the wild oat and other grasses, upon the seeds of which they feed with greatavidity during the autumnal and winter months. They then associatepartially with Reed-birds, Grakles, and Cow-pen Buntings, and are seento move from the Eastern to the Southern Districts, in such immense andthick flocks as almost to cloud the air. The havoc made amongst them is scarcely credible. I have heard thatupwards of fifty have been killed at a shot, and am the more inclined tobelieve such accounts as I have myself shot hundreds in the course of anafternoon, killing from ten to fifteen at every discharge. Whilst travellingin different parts of the Southern States, during the latter part of autumn, Ihave often seen the fences, trees and fields so strewed with these birds, as tomake me believe their number fully equal to that of the falling l

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