392 



LAND BIRDS 



ever, he takes charge of them, and I have found him 

 alone with a brood of seven nestlings huddled in a fence 

 corner in Michigan. The young are born naked except 

 for a scanty sprinkling of down, through w^iich their 

 skin is conspicuously visible. When feathered, they re- 

 semble the females, and by August first, when even 

 Robert has doffed his gay suit, it is difficult to tell one 

 member of the family from the 

 others. This is their travelling 

 costume, and they start at once 

 on their long journey south to 



'^'^ 



.1. -nCk: 





^^- ^" 



494. Bobolink. 

 ■ While his demure sweetheart listens. 



3 }\\.c^^" 



winter on the 

 Amazon River. 

 En route they are known as rice birds, and make havoc of 

 the rice fields of the Southern States, so that farmers and 

 sportsmen alike make war upon them, selling them as 

 " ortolans " in Southern markets. In the spring they 

 come north again, reaching the rice fields in April, when 

 the tender shoots are a few inches high, and stop there a 

 few days to pull them up before coming farther to their 

 breeding grounds. At this season Robert has on his 



