BOBOLINK. 113 



the performers awake or relapse into rest ; it finally becomes 

 more distinct and tumultuous, till with the opening day it as- 

 sumes the intelligible character of their ordinary song. The 

 young males, towards the close of July, having nearly acquired 

 their perfect character, utter also in the morning, from the 

 trees which border their favorite marshy meadows, a very 

 agreeable and continuous low warble, more like that of the 

 Yellow Bird than the usual song of the species ; in fact, they 

 appear now in every respect as Finches, and only become 

 jingling musicians when robed in their pied dress as Icteri. 



About the middle of August, in congregating numbers, di- 

 vested already of all selective attachment, vast foraging parties 

 enter New York and Pennsylvania, on their way to the South. 

 Here, along the shores of the large rivers, lined with floating 

 fields of the wild rice, they find an abundant means of sub- 

 sistence during their short stay ; and as their flesh, now fat, is 

 little inferior to that of the European Ortolan, the Reed or Rice 

 Birds, as they are then called in their Sparrow-dress, form a 

 favorite sport for gunners of all descriptions, who turn out on 

 the occasion and commit prodigious havoc among the almost 

 silent and greedy roosting throng. The markets are then filled 

 with this delicious game, and the pursuit, both for success and 

 amusement, along the picturesque and reedy shores of the Del- 

 aware and other rivers is second to none but that of Rail- 

 shooting. As soon as the cool nights of October commence, 

 and as the wild rice crops begin to fail, the Reed Birds 

 take their departure from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and in 

 their farther progress through the Southern States they swarm 

 in the rice fields ; and before the crop is gathered they have 

 already made their appearance in the islands of Cuba and 

 Jamaica, where they also feed on the seeds of the Guinea 

 grass, become so fat as to deserv^e the name of " Butter- birds," 

 and are in high esteem for the table. 



Near the Atlantic coast the Bobolink is not common north of 

 the 45th parallel ; but in the West it ranges to much higher latitudes. 

 A few examples have been observed on the New Brunswick shore 

 of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

 VOL. I. — 8 



