THE ORTOLES. BLACKBIRDS. TROWS. A.\l> .lAV 



]C:. 



middle asj;e state that bobolinks are not nearly so coiiinion in 

 the fields as they were fifty or sixty years ago. While it may 

 be that the rice destroyed is worth more than the slaughter 

 of insects, there is no certainty that it is so, though no one 

 can blame rice-planters for attempting to exterminate the 

 birds. In any case, those Avho know the bobolink in his 

 northern home can but regard with complaisance the fact 

 that he has a place among tilings that yet exist. 



The ]\Ieadow-Lark, with its "bosom of prairie buttercups, 

 its back hke the dead grass of autumn, and its song Avhich 







THE MEADOW-LARK. 

 {After Biological Siirvi'i/.) 



harmonizes Avell with the prairie winds," is essentially a bird 

 of tlie prairies. But it is not confined to the prairie States: 

 from New England to Florida, from Florida to Mexico, from 

 Mexico to Oregon, and from Oregon back again to New Eng- 

 land, where there are open stretches of pasture and jiieadow 

 lands, one is likely to lind the eastern meadow-lark or its 

 western representative. In northern localities it dwells only 

 in summer, migrating southward for the winter, ])ut in many 

 Central States it remains throughout the year, lis nest is 

 built on the ground in a clunip of grass and four or live 

 young are reared. 



