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Among the first birds that make their appearance in Washington is the crow blackbird. He may come any time after the 1st of March. The birds congregate in large flocks, and frequent groves and parks, alternately swarming in the treetops and filling the air with their sharp jangle, and alighting on the ground in quest of food, their polished coats glistening in the sun from very blackness as they walk about. There is evidently some music in the soul of this bird at this season, though he makes a sad failure in getting it out. His voice always sounds as if he were laboring under a severe attack of influenza, though a large flock of them, heard at a distance on a bright afternoon of early spring, produce an effect not unpleasing. The air is filled with crackling, splintering, spurting, semi-musical sounds, which are like pepper and salt to the ear.

All parks and public grounds about the city are full of blackbirds. They are especially plentiful in the trees about the White House, breeding there and waging war on all other birds. The occupants of one of the offices in the west wing of the Treasury one day had their attention attracted by some object striking violently against one of the window-panes. Looking up, they beheld a crow blackbird pausing in midair, a few feet from the window. On the broad stone window-sill lay the quivering form of a purple finch. The little tragedy was easily read. The blackbird had pursued the finch with such murderous violence that the latter, in its desperate efforts to escape, had sought refuge in the Treasury. The force of the concussion against the heavy plateglass of the window had killed the poor thing instantly. The pursuer, no doubt astonished at the sudden and novel termination of the career of its victim, hovered for a moment, as if to be sure of what had happened, and made off.

(It is not unusual for birds, when thus threatened with destruction by their natural enemy, to become so terrified as to seek safety in the presence of man. I was once startled, while living in a country village, to behold, on entering my room at noon, one October day, a quail sitting upon my bed. The affrighted and bewildered bird instantly started for the open window, into which it had no doubt been driven by a hawk.)

The crow blackbird has all the natural cunning of his prototype, the crow. In one of the inner courts of the Treasury building there is a fountain with several trees growing near. By midsummer the blackbirds became so bold as to venture within this court. Various fragments of food, tossed from the surrounding windows, reward their temerity. When a crust of dry bread defies their beaks, they have been seen to drop it into the water, and, when it has become soaked sufficiently, to take it out again.

They build a nest of coarse sticks and mud, the whole burden of the enterprise seeming to devolve upon the female. For several successive mornings, just after sunrise, I used to notice a pair of them flying to and fro in the air above me as I hoed in the garden, directing their course about half a mile distant, and disappearing, on their return, among the trees about the Capitol. Returning, the female always had her beak loaded with building material, while the male, carrying nothing, seemed to act as her escort, flying a little above and in advance of her, and uttering now and then his husky, discordant note. As I tossed a lump of earth up at them, the frightened mother bird dropped her mortar, and the pair scurried away, much put out. Later they avenged themselves by pilfering my cherries.

The most mischievous enemies of the cherries, however, here as at the North, are the cedar waxwings, or “cherry-birds.” How quickly they spy out the tree! Long before the cherry begins to turn, they are around, alert and cautious. In small flocks they circle about, high in the air, uttering their fine note, or plunge quickly into the tops of remote trees. Day by day they approach nearer and nearer, reconnoitring the premises, and watching the growing fruit. Hardly have the green lobes turned a red cheek to the sun, before their beaks have scarred it. At first they approach the tree stealthily, on the side turned from the house, diving quickly into the branches in ones and twos, while the main flock is ambushed in some shade tree not far off. They are most apt to commit their depredations very early in the morning and on cloudy, rainy days. As the cherries grow sweeter the birds grow bolder, till, from throwing tufts of grass, one has to throw stones in good earnest, or lose all his fruit. In June they disappear, following the cherries to the north, where by July they are nesting in the orchards and cedar groves.