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336 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
Female, yellowish beneath; two stripes on the top of the head, and the upper 
parts throughout, except the back of the neck and rump, and including all the wing 
feathers generally, dark-brown, all edged with brownish-yellow; which becomes 
whiter nearer the tips of the quills; the sides sparsely streaked with dark-brown, 
and a similar stripe behind the eye; there is a superciliary and a median band of 
yellow on the head. 
Length of male, seven and seventy one-hundredths inches; wing, three and 
eighty-three one-hundredths; tail, three and fifteen one-hundredths inches. 
Hab. — Eastern United States to the high central plains. Seen fifty miles east 
of Laramie. 
HIS well-known merry songster of the North, Reed 
Bird or Ortolan of the Middle States, and Rice Bird 
of the South, is abundantly distributed throughout most 
sections of the eastern half of the continent, ranging from 
the latitude of Quebec, in Lower Canada (which is its most 
northern breeding point), through New England and its 
latitude in summer, to Mexico, Central America, West 
Indies, and the northern portions of the Southern Conti- 
nent, where it passes the winter. 
Early in spring it makes its appearance in the Southern 
United States, usually in small detached parties of from 
eight to a dozen individuals, and proceeds leisurely to its 
summer home in the North, generally at about the following 
dates: being abundant in Georgia about April 20; in Dis- 
trict of Columbia, ‘*‘ distributed about orchards and meadows 
in flocks, from May 1st to 15th ;” arrives on Long Island, 
N. Y., “about the 20th of May ;” and is abundant in the 
latitude of Middle New England by the latter part of that 
month. 
The males usually arrive in the North several days before 
the females, during which interim they frequent meadows 
and fields in cultivated districts, preferring them to thinly 
settled localities, and soon become very tame and familiar, 
considering the severity with which they were pursued by 
the inhabitants of all the countries they traversed in their 
migration, by whom they are regarded only as a pest and a 
nuisance. The Bobolink knows when he has arrived among 
his friends; and the same bird which would have risen be- 
