392 LAND BIRDS 
ever, he takes charge of them, and I have found him 
alone with a brood of seven nestlings huddled in a fence 
corner in Michigan. The young are born naked except 
for a scanty sprinkling of down, through which their 
skin is conspicuously visible. When feathered, they re- 
semble the females, and by August first, when even 
Robert has doffed his gay suit, it is difficult to tell one 
member of the family from the 
others. This is their travelling <a. 2st 
_ 3 ADR 
costume, and they start at once 2 
on their long journey south to 
494, BoBOLINK. 
winter on the 
“ While his demure sweetheart listens.” ; Amazon River. 
En route they are known as rice birds, and make havoc of 
the rice fields of the Southern States, so that farmers and 
sportsmen alike make war upon them, selling them as 
“ortolans”? in Southern markets. In the spring they 
come north again, reaching the rice fields in April, when 
the tender shoots are a few inches high, and stop there a 
few days to pull them up before coming farther to their 
breeding grounds. At this season Robert has on his 
