The Birds of New Jersey - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 edition. Excerpt: ...sounds his encouragement to the setting female--the resonant "eonquor--eee"--which we may also hear floating up from the border of the swamp as the dusk of evening settles down. In late summer and autumn the birds gather in flocks repairing to roosts every night, often associating with Grackles, Eobins and Cowbirds, and later the two sexes flock separately, remaining apart until the mating season in April. The Eed-wings are among the first migrants of spring time, and the flocks of females always arrive somewhat later than the males. In winter occasional flocks are to be found in Cape May county and along the shores of the Delaware at least as far north as Philadelphia, but they drift up and down and are probably not permanently resident at any one spot. The Eed-wing is one of the few of our smaller birds against which the farmer entertains an hereditary enmity. I have found few farmers who could furnish reliable information concerning the damage caused by these birds in the State, but because Blackbirds and Crows have always been under the ban they are against them. Let us see what the careful stomach analyses of the Agricultural Department have shown. In the first place, seventy-three per cent, of the Eed-wing's food is vegetable and twenty-seven per cent, animal; the latter includes five per cent, grasshoppers and six per cent, caterpillars. Of vegetable matter, grain constitutes fourteen per cent, of the seventy-three per cent., the remainder consisting of various weed and wild grass seed and a small number of wild berries. The damage done varies greatly in different sections; in most parts 1 Bird Lore, Christmas Lists. 1904 nnfl 1907. of the East it is exceeded by the good done by the birds in destroying insects....