BOB-0-USK. 



IKX:. 



Cateaby, Wilson, Audubon, and XutUll give the most complete 

 accounts of thi well-known bird : " The whole continent uf America," 

 ay* the latter, fniiu Labrador to Mexico and the great Antilles, are 

 the occasional residence of thin truly migratory apecieo. About the 

 mi.l.lle of March, or beginning of April, the cheerful Bob-o-Link makes 

 his appearance in the southern extremity of the United Stated, becom- 



resort appears to be rather the Went Indie* than the tropical conti- 

 nent, at their migration* are observed to take place generally to the 

 cut of Louisiana, where their visits are rare and irregular." (Audu- 

 bon'g ' Ornithological Biography,' vol. i. p. 283.) At this season also 

 they make their approach?* chiefly by night, obeying an it were more 

 distinctly the mandate* of an overruling instinct, which prompts them 

 to seek out their natal regions ; while in autumn their progress, by 

 day only, is alone instigated by the natural quest of food. About the 

 1st of May the meadows of Massachusetts begin to re-echo their lively 

 ditty. At this season in wet places, and by newly-ploughed fields, 

 they destroy many insects and their larvae ; but while on their way 

 through the southern states they cannot resist the temptation of 

 feeding on the early wheat and tender barley. According to their 

 success in this way parties often delay their final northern movement 

 as late as the middle of May, so that they appear to be in no haate to 

 arrive at their destination at any exact period. The principal business 

 of their lives however, the rearing of their young, does not take place 

 until they have left the parallel of the 40th degree. In the savannahs 

 of Ohio and Michigan, and the cool grassy meadows of New York, 

 Canada, and New Kngliuul, they fix their abode, and obtain a suffi- 

 ciency of food throughout the summer without molesting the harvest 

 of the farmer until the ripening of the latest crops of oats and barley, 

 when in their autumnal and changed dress, hardly known now as the 

 same species, they sometimes show their taste for plunder, and flock 

 together like the greedy and predatory blackbirds. 



The song of the male generally ceases about the first week in July, 

 and about the same time his variegated dress, which from a resem- 

 blance in its colours to that of the quadruped obtained for it the 

 name of ' Skunk-Bird ' among the Cree Indians, is exchanged for the 

 sombre hues of the plumage of the female. The author above quoted 

 thus describes the autumnal migration : 



" About the middle of August, in congregating numbers, divested 

 already of all selective attachment, vast foraging parties enter New 

 York and Pennsylvania on their way to the south. Here along the 

 shores of the large rivers, lined with floating fields of the Wild Rice 

 (Zizania), they find an abundant means of subsistence during their 

 short stay ; and as their flesh, now fat, is little inferior to that of the 

 European ortolan, the reed- or rice-birds, as they are then called in 

 their sparrow dress, form a favourite sport for gunners of all descrip- 

 tions, who turn out on the occasion and commit prodigious havoc 

 among the almost silent and greedy roosting throng. The markets 

 are then filled with this delicious game, and the pursuit, both for 

 success and amusement along the picturesque and reedy shores of the 

 Delaware and other rivers, is second to none but that of rail-shooting. 

 As soon as the cool nights of October commence, and as the wild rice- 

 crops begin to fail, the reed-birds take their departure from Penn- 

 sylvania and New Jersey, and in their further progress through the 

 southern states they swarm in the rice-fields ; and before the crop is 

 gathered they have already made their appearance in the islands of 

 Cuba and Jamaica, where they also feed on the seeds of the Guinea 

 Orass (Sorgkum), becoming so fat as to deserve the name of ' Butter- 

 Birds,' and are in high esteem for the table." 



Catosby, under the name of Caroline Ortolan, gives the following 

 interesting account of the Rice-Bird, from which it appears that the 

 damage done to the farmer by this comparatively weak agent is very 

 great: 



" In the beginning of September, while the grain of rice is yet soft 

 and milky, innumerable flights of these birds arrive from some remote 

 parts to the great detriment of the inhabitants. In 1724 an inhabitant 

 near Ashley River bad forty acres of rice BO devoured by them that he 

 was in doubt whether what they had left was worth the expense of 

 gathering in. They are esteemed in Carolina the greatest delicacy of 

 all other birds. When they first arrive they are lean, but in a few 

 days become so excessively fat that they fly sluggishly and with dilli- 

 cutty, and when shot frequently burst with the fall. They continue 

 about three weeks, and retire by the time the rice first begins to 

 harden. There is something so singular and extraordinary in this 

 1'ir.l that I cannot pass it over without notice. In September, when 

 they arrive in infinite swarms to devour the rice, they are all hens, 

 not being accompanied with any cock. Observing them to be all 

 feathered alike, I imagined they were young of both sexes not per- 

 fected in their colour* ; but by opening some scores prepared for the 

 spit I found them to be all females, and that I might leave no room 

 f ir doubt repeated the search often on many of them, but could never 

 find a cock at that time of the year. Karly in the spring both cock* 

 and bens make a transient visit together, at wlii.-h time I made the 

 like search as before, and both sexes were plainly distinguishable. 

 .... In September, 1 725, lying upon the deck of a sloop in a bay at 

 Andro* Island, I and the company with me heard three nights suc- 



cessively flights of these bird* (thoir noto being plainly distinguishable 

 from others) passing over our head- northerly, which i- 

 way from Cuba to Carolina; from which I conceive, after partaking 

 of the earlier crop of rice at Culm, they travel over sea to Carolina f>r 

 ie intent, the rice there In -iiu' at that time fit for them." 



Sir John Richardson says that the 54th parallel, wlikh it reaches 

 in June, appears to be the most northern limit of the I: !. .. Link, and 

 gives a description of a male in its nuptial dress, which was killed on 

 the Saskatchewan in that month in the year 1827. 



Swainson places it as a genus of his tlm-.l rub-family, .1;. 

 in the third or aberrant group uf h. 



Grassy meadow* are the spots usually selected by the bird for it* 

 nest, which is made on the ground, generally in some slightly 

 depressed spot, of withered grass, BO carelessly bedded together as 

 scarcely to be distinguishable from the neighbouring parts of the tirhl. 

 Here five or six eggs of purplish- white, blotched all over with pm-ph-h, 

 and spotted with brown round the larger end, are laid. 



The length of the Bob-o-Link is about 74 inches. The male in his 

 nuptial dress has the head, fore part of the back, shoulders, wings, 

 tail, and the whole of the under plumage black, going off in the 

 mid. !]. of the back to grayish; scapulars, rump, and upper tail- 

 coverts white ; there is a large patch of ochreous yellow on the nape 

 and back of the neck ; bill bluish-black, which in the female, y<"ing 

 male, and adult male in his autumnal dress, i* pale flesh-mlmr : the 

 feathers of the tail are sharp at the end like a woodpecker's ; legs 

 brown. 



The female, whose plumage the adult male assumes after tin- 

 breeding season, has the back streaked with brownish-black, not unlike 

 that of a lark, according to Catesby, and the whole under parts of a 

 dirty yellow. The young males resemble the females. 



BODENITE, an ore of Cerium resembling Orthile. It is found at 

 Boden in Saxony. 



BCEHMERIA, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order 

 L'rticaeea. The species were formerly comprehended under the genus 

 [/'rtlca. One of the species B. nivea, formerly I'rtica nirea, is the 

 Rheea of Asam, and yield* fibres of remarkable fineness and ten 

 It appears from the investigations of Dr. Falconer, that the plant 

 which yields the celebrated grass-cloth of China is identical with the 

 Asam plant Several specimens of these fibres manufactured into 

 light articles of dress were exhibited in the Indian collection at the 

 Great Exhibition of 1851. The H. nirea is a herbaceous plant, with 

 broad ovate leaves which are downy and white beneath, hence its 

 specific name. It bears no sting. 



UOKKHAAVIA, a genus of plants named after the celebrated 

 Boerhaave, belonging to the natural order .\yctaginaceai. The species 

 of Boerhaaria have generally emetic and purgative properties, and 

 have been employed medicinally both by the natives of Peru and the 

 East Indies, where the species grow. B. luberota is stated by Liudlry 

 to be the Yerba dc la Purgacion of Peru, and that it is employed as a 

 culinary vegetable. The root of B. drcumbcn* is called Hog-Meat in 

 Jamaica, and on account of its emetic properties it is sometimes called 

 Ipecacuanha in Guyana. Sir Robert Schomburgh states that it is 

 astringent, and is useful in dysentery. B, decumbent and II. hirtula 

 are also said to possess medicinal properties. (Lindley, Vegetable 

 Kingdom.) 



BUG. The name of Bog has been given indiscriminately to very 

 different kinds of substances. In all cases the expression signifies 

 an earthy substance wanting in firmness or consistency, which state 

 seems to arise generally (perhaps not always) from the presence of a 

 superabundant supply of moisture having no natural outlet or drain. 



In some cases, where springs of water, or the drainage from an 

 extensive area, are pent up near the surface of the soil, they simply 

 render it soft or boggy, and in this state the land is ]>erhap>< mure 

 properly called a Quagmire. A second state of bog is where, in 

 addition to the condition just described, a formation of vegetable 

 matter is induced, which dying and being reproduced on the surface 

 assumes the state of a spongy mass of sufficient consistence to bear a 

 considerable weight Bogs of this description are numerous and 

 extensive in Ireland, where they are valuable from the use made of 

 the solid vegetable matter, both OK fuel and as a principal iiigivdn nt 

 in composts for manures. Where the turf has been cut aw ay f > these 

 purposes, several bogs have been reclaimed by draining; and tli.- 

 subsoil is then readily brought into cultivation. Bogs also occur in 

 all parts of Great Britain where the form of the surface and tin- 

 nature of the earth favour the general condition tinder which bog is 

 formed. Thus there are bog* on the high granitic plntcun of 

 Cornwall, on the road from Launceston to Bodmin ; and in the large 

 granitic mass, of which Brown Willy is the centre, the bottoms of the 

 valleys are covered with bogs, the lower part of which is consolidated 

 into peat Although peat-moss always springs from some moist spot, 

 it will grow and spread over mound ground, and if not stopped by 

 some natural or artificial impediment, such as a wall, would overrun 

 whole district*. In this case it absorbs any moisture which reaches it, 

 and retains it like a sponge. 



The depth of a bog depends on the level of the surrounding 

 grounds. It cannot rise much higher than the lowest outlet for the 

 water. Where there is n immediate outlet the bog increases, until 

 the evaporation is equal to the supply of the springs and rains, or till 



