The Bobolink 139 



Thev continue thus to look alike until the following Fel)ruary, when again 

 all the old feathers are shed and new ones grown. Styles do not change in the 

 Bobolink world, and Mrs. Bobolink again takes the streaked dress which she 

 and her ancestors have worn as long as any one knows; but Bob prepares for 

 the season of courtship by donning his suit of black and buff, not a:: yet, however, 

 fully displayed, but partly concealed, as it were, by a yellowish cloak, which we 

 find is composed of tips to the black feathers. As the summer home is approached, 

 these yellow tips drop off, and, in due time, reveal the jaunty garment below. 



The young Bobolinks, whether male or female, wear a plumage resembling 

 that of their mother on leaving the nest, and the males acquire the black and 

 buff plumage the following spring. 



Bobolink, however, does not rely only on the charms of his plumage to win 

 him a mate, but woos her also with voice; and such a voice! What Bobolink 

 could resist it? Did there ever issue from throat of bird so eloquent an expres- 

 sion of the season's joys? Lowell must have felt this when he wrote 



'"The BoboUnk has come, and like the soul 

 Of a sweet season, vocal in a bird, 

 Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what 

 Save June! Dear June! Now God be praised for June." 



But if this be said of the song of one Bobolink, what shall we say when 

 hundreds sing together, as they do in the South in the spring, clustering in the 

 trees like Red-winged Blackbirds in March, and producing a chorus to which 

 even the poets could not do justice. 



Soon after arriving, nest-building begins. The nest is a simple affair of grasses 

 placed on the ground in a sHght depression where the rim is even with the sur- 

 rounding surface. The four to seven eggs are grayish, with numerous irregu- 

 lar spots and blotches of brown. The birds are careful not to betray the location 

 of their home. The male does not sing too near it, and the female does not 

 leave or return to it directly, but goes a short distance through the grass. 



At this season of the year, the Bobolink is a most desirable citizen from every 

 point of view. He pleases the eye, charms the ear, and wins our approval through 

 his destruction of noxious insects. Grasshoppers, caterpillars, army worms, 

 weevils, are all on the Bobolink's bill-of-fare while nesting; and, if our estimate 

 of the bird's economic value were to be based on its food habits of this season 

 alone, one might declare the Bobolink to be as useful as he is beautiful. But, 

 unfortunately, there is a debit side to his account with man, which is said to 

 overbalance the items to his credit. 



Whatever may have been his habits before man appeared, certain it is that 

 now, with unfailing regularity, as a Ricebird he visits in vast numbers the 

 rice fields of our southern states in late August and September. The rice is 

 now in the milky stage and the birds devour great quantities of it. So great, in- 



