48 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



Of the normal flight, he says: "In the southward migration between 

 100 and 500 individuals could usually be seen daily as they migrated 

 overhead or fed in marshes and fallow fields. Upon a few occasions 

 from 600 to 2,000 were observed in a day." 



After converging in Florida, the migrating hosts make two long, 

 oversea flights, to Cuba and then to Jamaica. In Jamaica, the now 

 overfat bobolink is called the "butter-bird" and is shot in large 

 number for food. Gosse (1847) writes: "In ordinary seasons this 

 well-known bird arrived in vast numbers from the United States, in 

 the month of October, and scattering over the lowland plans, and 

 slopes of the seaside hills, assembles in the guinea-grass fields, in 

 flocks amounting to five hundred or more. The seed is then ripe, 

 and the black throngs settle down upon it, so densely, that numbers 

 may be killed at a random discharge. * * * Early in November they 

 depart for the southern continent, but during their brief stay they are 

 in great request for the table." 



A long flight from Jamaica across the Caribbean Sea lands the 

 birds on the northern coast of Venezuela. Dr. Wetmore (1939) says: 

 "Shortly after sunrise on October 16 as our ship entered the harbor 

 at La Guaira a flock of about 75 small birds swept in along the shore 

 in close formation and rose to pass over the docks. At a casual glance 

 I took them for sandpipers, but as I obtained a better look I saw that 

 they were bobolinks. I supposed that they had just arrived in 

 migration and were making a landfall as there was no place here for 

 them to feed. At Ocumare de la Costa before seven on the morning of 

 October 28, one flew with a low call from a large sea-grape tree on the 

 beach and went uncertainly toward the marsh beyond. It seemed to be 

 newly arrived. The following day I flushed half a dozen from rushes 

 growing in the lagoon." 



Winter. — Although there are a few scattering late fall and early 

 winter records for even the northern States, practically all the bobo- 

 links have left the United States before November, and nearly all 

 have reached their winter home in central South America. Dr. 

 Wetmore (1926) says: "During winter it continues to frequent 

 swamps and grass-grown marshes, and seems to have its centre of 

 abundance in the Chaco, a vast area of poorly drained, swampy land, 

 with broad grass-grown savannas, that extends west of the Parana 

 and Paraguay rivers, from northern Santa Fe in north central Argen- 

 tina, north into Bolivia and Brazil." Although the bobolink has had 

 a safe haven here for many years, he remarks that the country is being 

 settled, rice is being cultivated, and the birds are being killed for food 

 by the foreign settlers. This prospect does not look favorable for the 

 bobolink, which is also popular as a cage bird there. 



