70 MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



seen in favored localities, soaring low over the meadows, poising with 

 flapping wings about to dart below upon some unsuspecting rodent, or 

 dashing into our faces, as we come over a hill, as suddenly to vanish 

 from view, and we are always thrilled by this fairy form in blue or brown 

 (the colors of the male and female bird, respectively). Nests with eggs 

 may be found from the first of May to the first of August. Perhaps the 

 more usual site is the wet, bushy marsh or bog, where the nest is raised 

 several inches above the wet moss and water, composed of various sized 

 sticks for a foundation and reeds, grasses and sedges — a rather coarse 

 structure and bulky as is usual with the nests of hawks. Nearly as often 

 is the nest placed flat upon the ground in the hay-fields, or in the growing 

 wheat, rye, oats and barley. In such places it is composed simply of a 

 few spears of the grass or grain plucked and laid upon that which may be 

 bent and trampled down upon the spot. With few exceptions these nests 

 are destroyed before the young are ready to fly. I find many broken up 

 each year. Eggs five, pale blue, usually unmarked. The food of the 

 Marsh Hawk consists of mice, frogs, grasshoppers, crickets, etc., with very 

 seldom a young bird which is learning to fky. It has never been seen, I 

 think, to molest poultry, or birds which are able to fly. Of no harm 

 whatever and of exceeding benefit to the farmer. 



The Horned Lark, or if I am to be technically correct I suppose I must 

 say the Prairie Horned Lark, Otocoris alpestris praticola, (although I 

 always protest in my heart these varietal species which I could not dis- 

 tinguish with certainty one from another if I had them here before me) 

 remains with us throughout the year and whether chasing each other 

 about the snow-clad fields or running before the carriage in the dusty 

 road, they are always the same sprightly cheery little fellows, showing 

 scarcely any fear. The nests are usually placed in a slight depression 

 by a tuft of grass and composed of grasses and rootlets, without any 

 great care being manifest in the construction. The five eggs are of a 

 drab color made up of innumerable spots of that tint so close together 

 as to give a nearly solid effect. The nests of this species may be found 

 from the first of March to the middle of April or perhaps a little later than 

 that. I have found about the middle of March the usual time, and it is 

 a common thing to find the sitter surrounded or nearly covered with 

 snow. The food of this bird consists of both insects and seeds. Of no 

 harm and of some use though I am not as yet certain to what extent 

 insects are taken. 



The Bobolink, Dolichonyx oryzivonis, arrives in Washtenaw county 

 from the south usually between April 30 and May 5. This bird being 

 one of the few species dressed in black and white that we can boast as 

 summer residents, at once tells of its return in one of the most animated 

 songs which the woods and fields can furnish. The nest is built during 

 the latter half of May and is so concealed beneath the thick growth of 

 clover, timothy, etc., as to practically preclude all chance of finding. 

 It is composed simply of grasses upon the ground, and the five eggs, of a 

 mottled, stony color, so resemble their surroundings as to make it very 

 inconspicuous even when actually exposed to view. Early in the fall, 

 the male Bobolink changes its garb of black and white to the usual and 

 more sombre plumage, of brown tinged with yellow, of the female bird 

 and proceeds southward to become the dreaded ''Rice-bird 1 ' of the planta- 



