170 



USEFUL niRDS 



THE BOBOLINK. 



-»rf-v-: 





This dandy amongst birds — a favorite of bird lovers and sub- 

 ject of many a song and poem — is a common and welcome summer 

 resident here, filling the fields with drunken melody, while his 

 more modestly-colored mate is sitting quietly (jn her nest, .well 

 hidden in grass or clover. So familiar to all is this songster that 

 with the above excellent illustration before us, no verlial descrip- 

 tion is necessary. 



The beauty and song of the male bird are but transient tpial- 

 ities, for after the breeding season, he loses his fine clothes, be- 

 comes dull olive-colored, streaked with black, like the female and 

 }oung, and, in the fall, flocks southward to wild rice marshes and 

 cultivated rice fields, wintering in South America. At night one 

 frequently realizes flocks of these birds are passing, by hearing 

 their metallic "Chink" in the darkened sky above. As "reed bird" 

 and "rice bird," they lind their way into the markets of the East 

 and South, fattened by voracious feeding in the rice fields. While 

 with us in the North, they eat large numbers of injvirious insects. 



