Description

Plate 67. Double Elephant Folio (the first edition of The Birds of America).
As noted by Leslie Kostrich (see ACKNOWLEDGMENTS), Audubon makes the case that this bird, from an ecological point of view, is more a boon to agriculture than a detriment.
He writes: “The Marsh Blackbird is so well known as being a bird of the most nefarious propensities [that it seems to have] been created for the purpose of annoying the farmer. That it destroys an astonishing quantity of corn, rice, and other kinds of grain, cannot be denied; but that before it commences its ravages, it has proved highly serviceable to the crops, is equally certain. Their food [in spring] is almost exclusively composed of grubs, worms, caterpillars, and different sorts of coleopterous insects, which they procure… in the newly ploughed fields, walking with a graceful step. The millions of insects which the Redwings destroy at this early season, are, in my opinion, a full equivalent for the corn which they eat at another period; and for this reason, farmers do not molest them in spring, when they resort to the fields in immense numbers. They then follow the ploughman… and as if aware of the benefit which they are conferring, do not seem to regard him with apprehension.”