BOBOLINK 37 



As I return toward her nest she sits on a small shrub, and now and 

 then utters a note which sounds like quick. In the afternoon, while I 

 was sitting on the ground adjusting a small observation blind five or 

 six yards from the nest, the female came rather near, calling quick; 

 the male came up and perched on a tall spray of wild asparagus, calling 

 rather anxiously a note different from hers. 



"June 16 (between 8 and 9 a.m.): While hidden in the blind trying 

 to photograph the male on the nearby asparagus, I saw the female go 

 to the nest two or three times to feed the young. Both parents were 

 agitated and continued chirping for some time after I was hidden. 

 Upon examining the nest I found one almost naked nestling outside 

 (two or three inches away) with its head down in the grass. It kicked 

 when I touched it. As I was leaving, the male used the jumping re- 

 treat, similar to that of the female. 



"June 18: I can see only three young in the nest; they have grown 

 rapidly; and there is one unhatched egg, which had hitherto been 

 hidden. The male is very communicative. When I was thinning the 

 onion seedlings in the garden he sat on a nearby bean pole berating me 

 and singing to me repeatedly. This evening he followed me across the 

 garden. 



"June 21: There was a great deal of alarm-calling on the part of 

 both parents when I went out this morning. After I had become well 

 settled in the blind both parents came to the tall asparagus, and I 

 thought I saw a little billing. Soon I saw one of the youngsters 

 scrambling out of the nest; and before 8:30 a. m. they all had left and 

 were crawling away in the tall grass. * * * During my stay in the 

 blind, the male bobolink did the watching and guarding while the fe- 

 male did the feeding; then he brought food to the young who were 

 hidden in the grass at some distance from the nest. He alighted on the 

 asparagus before taking food to them. He brought green larvae, a 

 dark miller, and an insect which looked like a brown wasp. The female 

 once brought a white object which had the appearance of being hard 

 and about the size of a small seed of sweet corn. All the commotion 

 was repeated when I made another visit, near noon, to try to locate 

 the young. After I was hidden and all had become quiet again, I 

 could hear a youngster in the grass only a few feet from the nest. 

 Occasionally it uttered a note resembling the syllable chib, and it 

 moved the grass so that I got its location and went out and found it. 

 But before I reached the spot it had half buried itself, head downward, 

 in the thick mat about the grass roots. Thus all its forward parts 

 were hidden, and only its legs and the posterior extremity of its body 

 were visible. While I was trying to part the overhanging grass suffi- 

 ciently to photograph it in this position, it was overcome by some great 

 discomfort and quickly unburied itself, squirmed, shook itself, and sat 



