THE ORIOLES, BLACKBIRDS. CROWS. AND JAYS. 165 



middle age state that bobolinks are not nearly so common in 

 the fields as they were fifty or sixty years ago. While it may 

 be that the rice destroyed is worth more than the slaughter 

 of insects, there is no certainty that it is so, though no one 

 can blame rice-planters for attempting to exterminate the 

 birds. In any case, those who know the bobolink in his 

 northern home can but regard with complaisance the fact 

 that he has a place among things that yet exist. 



The MEADOW-LARK, with its " bosom of prairie buttercups, 

 its back like the dead grass of autumn, and its song which 



THE MEADOW-LARK. 



(After Biiiloyifftl Hurrey.) 



harmonizes well with the prairie winds," is essentially a bird 

 of the prairies. But it is not confined to the prairie States: 

 from New England to Florida, from Florida to Mexico, from 

 Mexico to Oregon, and from Oregon back again to New Eng- 

 land, where there are open stretches of pasture and meadow 

 lands, one is likely to find the eastern meadow-lark or its 

 western representative. In northern localities it dwells only 

 in summer, migrating southward for the winter, but in many 

 Central States it remains throughout the year. Its nest is 

 built on the ground in a clump of grass and four or five 

 young are reared. 



