BOBOLINK. 47 



are available: the least popular of these, over which comparatively 

 few birds travel, is the eastern route through Puerto Rico and the 

 Antilles to British Guiana; the main trunkline, followed by a majority 

 of the species, is an overseas route to Cuba and Jamaica and a long 

 flight across the Caribbean Sea to South America; the third route, 

 also well patronized, leads to Yucatan and thence along the east coast 

 of Central America. After reaching South America, its route to its 

 winter quarters is not as well known, but Chapman (1890) has this 

 to say about it: "Salvin gives the bird from British Guiana and this, 

 with the Cayenne record, seems to form the eastern limit of its range, 

 there being, as far as I know, no records for eastern Brazil or the lower 

 Amazon, while Darwin's record, already referred to, of a specimen 

 taken in October, 1835, on James Island in the Galapagoes, is the only 

 one with which I am familiar from west of the Andes. Indeed our 

 bird's further wanderings seem now to be largely confined to the 

 eastern slope of this range of mountains and the head waters of the 

 Amazon, until it reaches what may be its true winter quarters in 

 southern or southwestern Brazil." 



Skutch tells me that "the bobolink appears only exceptionally to 

 migrate through Central America. On October 12, 1930, I saw a few 

 birds which I took to be bobolinks in winter plumage among the 

 swamp grasses around the Toloa Lagoon in northern Honduras." 

 But Todd and Carriker (1922) record it in Colombia as "a common 

 visitor in September and October in the lowlands, from Santa Marta 

 around to Fundacion and all along the shores of the Cienaga Grande." 



Examining the migration in more detail, a few published remarks are 

 worth quoting. In Manitoba, according to Seton (1891), they gather 

 into large flocks toward the end of July, and "then leave the prairie 

 and attack the oat fields, doing, with the assistance of the Grackles 

 and Redwing Blackbirds, an immense amount of mischief. After the 

 oats are cut they resort to the marshes, feeding on wild rice, etc., 

 until the cool nights inform them it is time to leave." 



Milton B. Trautman (1940) describes an unusually heavy migration 

 in Ohio as follows: 



While in a boat near Sellars Point, between 5:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. on September 

 3, 1931, I heard flight notes of Bobolinks, and looking into the cloudless sky I saw a 

 flock of approximately 50 flying in a southerly direction. The roughly rectangular 

 flock was about one-fourth as deep as long and was advancing with the long side 

 in front. At approximately 200-yard intervals behind this group came 31 other 

 such flocks. No flock in this long irregular column contained less than 35 indi- 

 viduals nor more than 75, and the distance between each was remarkably constant. 

 The birds appeared to be about 200 feet above the water, and could barely be seen 

 with the naked eye. This migration was unusual because of its large size and its 

 regularity and uniformity. 



