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.