Red-bird is another species of small bird. Catesby has likewise figured it[13]. Dr. Linnæus calls it, Loxia Cardinalis. It belongs to that class of birds which are enemies to bees, lying in wait for them and eating them. I fed a cock for five months together in a cage; it eat both maize and buck-wheat, for I gave it nothing else. By its song it attracted others of its species to the court-yard, and after we had put some maize on the ground under the window where I had it, the others came there every day to get their food; it was then easy to catch them by means of traps. Some of them, especially old ones, both cocks and hens, would die with grief on being put into cages. Those on the other hand which were grown tame, began to sing exceedingly [[72]]sweet. Their note very nearly resembles that of our European nightingale, and on account of their agreeable song, they are sent abundantly to London, in cages. They have such strength in their bill that when you hold your hand to them they pinch it so hard as to cause the blood to issue forth. In spring they sit warbling on the tops of the highest trees in the woods, in the morning. But in cages they sit quite still for an hour; the next hour they hop up and down, singing; and so they go on alternately all day.
February the 17th. Cranes (Ardea Canadensis) were sometimes seen flying in the day-time, to the northward. They commonly stop here early in spring, for a short time, but they do not make their nests here, for they proceed on more to the north. Certain old Swedes told me, that in their younger years, as the country was not yet much cultivated, an incredible number of cranes were here every spring; but at present they are not so numerous. Several people who have settled here, eat their flesh, when they can shoot them. They are said to do no harm to corn, or the like.
February the 23d. This morning I [[73]]went down to Penn’s Neck, and returned in the evening.
Snow lay yet in several parts of the woods, especially where the trees stood very thick, and the sun could not make its way: however it was not above four inches deep. All along the roads was ice, especially in the woods, and therefore it was very difficult to ride horses, which were not sharp shoed. The people who are settled here know little of sledges, but ride on horseback to church in winter, though the snow is sometimes near a foot deep. It lays seldom above a week before it melts, and then some fresh snow falls.
A species of birds, called by the Swedes, maize-thieves, do the greatest mischief in this country. They have given them that name, because they eat maize, both publicly and secretly, just after it is sown and covered with the ground, and when it is ripe. The English call them blackbirds. There are two species of them, both described and drawn by Catesby[14]. Though they are very different in species, yet there [[74]]is so great a friendship between them, that they frequently accompany each other in mixed flocks. However, in Pensylvania, the first sort are more obvious, and often fly together, without any of the red-winged stares. The first sort, or the purple daws, bear, in many points, so great a likeness to the daw, the stare, and the thrush, that it is difficult to determine to which genus they are to be reckoned, but seem to come nearest to the stare; for the bill is exactly the same with that of the thrush, but the tongue, the flight, their sitting on the trees, their song and shape, make it entirely a stare; at a distance they look almost black, but close by they have a very blue or purple cast, but not so much as Catesby’s print: their size is that of a stare; the bill is conic, almost subulated, strait, convex, naked at the base, black, with almost equal mandibles, the upper being only a very little longer than the lower; the nostrils are oblong, yet a little angulated, so as to form almost squares; they are placed obliquely at the base of the bill, and have no hair; there is a little horny knob, or a small prominence on the upper side of them; the tongue is sharp and bifid at the point; the iris of the eyes is pale; the forehead, the crown, the nucha, [[75]]the upper part and the sides of the neck are of an obscure blue and green shining colour; the sides of the head under the eyes are obscurely blue; all the back and coverts of the wings are purple; the upper coverts of the tail are not of so conspicuous a purple colour, but as it were blackened with soot; the nine primary quill-feathers are black; the other secundary ones are likewise black, but their outward margin is purple; the twelve tail feathers have a blackish purple colour, and their tips are round; those on the outside are the shortest, and the middle extremely long. When the tail is spread, it looks round towards the extremity. The throat is blueish green, and shining; the breast is likewise black or shining green, according as you turn it to the light; the belly is blackish, and the vent feathers are obscurely purple-coloured; the parts of the breast and belly which are covered by the wings, are purple-coloured; the wings are black below, or rather sooty; and the thighs have blackish feathers; the legs (tibiæ), and the toes are of a shining black. It has four toes, as most birds have. The claws are black, and that on the back toe is longer than [[76]]the rest. Dr. Linnæus calls this bird Gracula Quiscula.
A few of these birds are said to winter in swamps, which are quite overgrown with thick woods; and they only appear in mild weather. But the greatest number go to the south at the approach of winter. To-day I saw them, for the first time this year. They flew in great flocks already. Their chief and most agreeable food is maize. They come in great swarms in spring, soon after the maize is put under ground. They scratch up the grains of maize, and eat them. As soon as the leaf comes out, they take hold of it with their bills, and pluck it up, together with the corn or grain; and thus they give a great deal of trouble to the country people, even so early in spring. To lessen their greediness of maize, some people dip the grains of that plant in a decoct of the root of the veratrum album, or white hellebore, (of which I shall speak in the sequel) and plant them afterwards. When the maize-thief eats a grain or two, which are so prepared, his head is disordered, and he falls down: this frightens his companions, and they dare not venture to the place again. But they repay themselves amply towards autumn, when the maize grows ripe; for at that time, [[77]]they are continually feasting. They assemble by thousands in the maize-fields, and live at discretion. They are very bold; for when they are disturbed, they only go and settle in another part of the field. In that manner, they always go from one end of the field to the other, and do not leave it till they are quite satisfied. They fly in incredible swarms in autumn; and it can hardly be conceived whence such immense numbers of them should come. When they rise in the air they darken the sky, and make it look quite black. They are then in such great numbers, and so close together, that it is surprising how they find room to move their wings. I have known a person shoot a great number of them on one side of a maize-field, which was far from frightening the rest; for they only just took flight, and dropped at about the distance of a musket-shot in another part of the field, and always changed their place when their enemy approached. They tired the sportsman, before he could drive them from off the maize, though he killed a great many of them at every shot. They likewise eat the seeds of the aquatic tare-grass (Zizania aquatica) commonly late in autumn, after the maize is got in. I am told, they likewise eat buck-wheat, and oats. Some people [[78]]say, that they even eat wheat, barley, and rye, when pressed by hunger; yet, from the best information I could obtain, they have not been found to do any damage to these species of corn. In spring, they sit in numbers on the trees, near the farms; and their note is pretty agreeable. As they are so destructive to maize, the odium of the inhabitants against them is carried so far, that the laws of Pensylvania and New Jersey have settled a premium of three-pence a dozen for dead maize-thieves. In New England, the people are still greater enemies to them; for Dr. Franklin told me, in the spring of the year 1750, that, by means of the premiums which have been settled for killing them in New England, they have been so extirpated, that they are very rarely seen, and in a few places only. But as, in the summer of the year 1749, an immense quantity of worms appeared on the meadows, which devoured the grass, and did great damage, the people have abated their enmity against the maize-thieves; for they thought they had observed, that those birds lived chiefly on these worms before the maize is ripe, and consequently extirpated them, or at least prevented their spreading too much. They seem therefore to be entitled, as it were, to a reward for their trouble. [[79]]But after these enemies and destroyers of the worms (the maize-thieves) were extirpated, the worms were more at liberty to multiply; and therefore they grew so numerous, that they did more mischief now than the birds did before. In the summer 1749, the worms left so little hay in New England, that the inhabitants were forced to get hay from Pensylvania, and even from Old England. The maize-thieves have enemies besides the human species. A species of little hawks live upon them, and upon other little birds. I saw some of these hawks driving up the maize-thieves, which were in the greatest security, and catching them in the air. Nobody eats the flesh of the purple maize-thieves or daws (Gracula quiscula); but that of the red-winged maize-thieves, or stares (Oriolus Phœniceus) is sometimes eaten. Some old people have told me, that this part of America, formerly called New Sweden, still contained as many maize-thieves as it did formerly. The cause of this they derive from the maize, which is now sown in much greater quantity than formerly; and they think that the birds can get their food with more ease at present.
PURPLE JACKDAW.
RED-WINGED STARE.
The American whortleberry, or the Vaccinium hispidulum, is extremely abundant [[80]]over all North America, and grows in such places where we commonly find our whortle-berries in Sweden. The American ones are bigger, but in most things so like the Swedish ones, that many people would take them to be mere varieties. The English call them Cranberries, the Swedes Tranbær, and the French in Canada Atopa, which is a name they have borrowed from the Indians. They are brought to market every Wednesday and Saturday at Philadelphia, late in autumn. They are boiled and prepared in the same manner as we do our red whortle-berries, or Vaccinium vitis idæa; and they are made use of during winter, and part of summer, in tarts and other kinds of pastry. But as they are very sour, they require a deal of sugar; but that is not very dear, in a country where the sugar-plantations are not far off. Quantities of these berries are sent over, preserved, to Europe, and to the West Indies.
March the 2d. Mytilus anatinus, a kind of muscle-shells, was found abundantly in little furrows, which crossed the meadows. The shells were frequently covered on the outside, with a thin crust of particles of iron, when the water in the furrows came from an iron mine. The Englishmen and [[81]]Swedes settled here seldom made any use of these shells; but the Indians who formerly lived here broiled them and ate the flesh. Some of the Europeans eat them sometimes.