102 BIRD FRIENDS 



represents no loss to the farmer and should not be 

 counted against the birds. 



The bobolink in rice-fields. In the North the 

 bobolink is beneficial in its feeding-habits and has 

 associated with it some of the pleasantest memories 

 of the springtime. But in the South, until recently, 

 the case was entirely different. The birds arrive in 

 the South in April just after the rice seeds have been 

 planted and do some damage to the sprouting grain. 

 The birds nest in the northern part of the United 

 States and after the breeding-season is over gather 

 in flocks and migrate southward, and used to arrive 

 in the rice-fields the last of August, and for two 

 months were present in millions, during which time 

 rice constituted almost their entire food. These 

 birds caused great loss to the rice-grower, estimated 

 at two million dollars annually. There was the di- 

 rect loss due to the eating of the rice and the indirect 

 loss on account of the expense involved in the meth- 

 ods used to keep off the bobolinks. Men and boys 

 were posted in the rice-fields from sunrise to sunset to 

 fire blank cartridges and thus frighten off the birds. 



Formerly the harm done by the bobolinks in the 

 South by eating rice was greater than the good done 

 by them in the North in destroying injurious insects 

 and weed seeds. But the injury now done is consid- 

 erably less than formerly, as is shown by the follow- 

 ing quotation from a recent bulletin of the Bureau 

 of Biological Survey : — 



