POND, LAKE, AND STREAM 31 



some feathers on the rump. After the young are hatched, 

 the male doffs his clownish dress and appears in as sombre 

 a garb as the female. 



The nest is built in a tussock on low meadows ; it consists 

 mostly of dried grass, and is very difficult to find. If two 

 persons drag a long rope over a piece of meadow where bob- 

 olinks abound and carefully note where the birds fly up, 

 they may succeed in finding it. It contains from four to 

 six brownish or grayish eggs which are marked with spots 

 or blotches of darker brown. 



The song is really indescribable, but is very characteristic 

 of the bird. You may see a bird nervously trying to sing 

 his best on some knoll ; suddenly he rises to a considerable 

 height, drops down again into the grass just as suddenly, all 

 the time bubbling over with joyous melody. If you find 

 the right meadow, you may see and hear a great many bobo- 

 links at the same time. 



Later in the season the bobolinks are all plain brownish- 

 striped birds. They linger for a while, rambling about 

 fields and meadows, and are sometimes seen in flocks on 

 oats, of which they are fond. About the 1st of September 

 they begin to migrate south. They feed now mostly on 

 wild rice, and are known as reedbirds or ricebirds to gun- 

 ners, and thousands are killed for the market. Do you 

 think we ought to shoot these beautiful little singers for 

 the table, when we have so many large game birds ? 



When Blackbirds become very numerous in fields, they 

 will do some injury to grain; but early in the season they 

 live largely on insects. It must be admitted, however, that 

 the bobolinks are very injurious to the rice-growers in the 

 South. Thousands of these ricebirds hover constantly 

 about the rice fields, and the Southern farmers have to 

 spend thousands of dollars annually to keep the birds from 

 eating all the rice they can grow. Although boys and 



