FAMILY Icterldx. 



with the Barn Swallow. Perhaps his constant foraging 

 in the meadow grass has put him out of practice on the 

 wing. However that may be, it is a significant fact that 

 he takes the shortest sea route to South America, and 

 the evidence goes to show he is uilable to sustain him- 

 self in a very long flight. He arrives in New York from 

 the south about the first of May, and proceeds up the 

 Hudson and Connecticut River Valleys to Canada. Al- 

 though he is a very common bird in the vicinity of Han- 

 over, N. H., he is extremely uncommon in the Valley 

 of the Pemigewasset, at Plymouth, scarcely twenty- 

 seven miles due east; but again in Belknap County, the 

 same distance southeast, he is abundant. 



All sentiment aside, it is impossible to state the true 

 value of the Bobolink relatively with agriculture. Mr. 

 Beal * says that he destroys $2,000,000 worth of rice in a 

 year, and Mr. Chapman says $3,000,000. Either way we 

 take it, the outlook is bad for the rice grower of the 

 South. In the North the bird subsists upon countless 

 varieties of insects and the seeds of useless plants, but it 

 would be difficult to prove that this beneficent work has 

 a money value which mounts up into the millions ! I 

 quote from Mr. Beal the state of the case in the South: 

 " Were the rice fields at a distance from the line of mi- 

 gration, . . . they would probably never be mo- 

 lested; but lying as they do directly in its path, they 

 form a recruiting ground, where the birds can rest and 

 accumulate flesh and strength for the long sea flight 

 which awaits them in their course to South America." 

 Then in regard to the two million dollars, Mr. Beal adds: 

 "If these figures are any approximation to the truth, 

 the ordinary farmer will not believe that the Bobolink 

 benefits the northern half of the country nearly as much 

 as it damages the southern half. . . . But even if 

 the bird really does more harm than good, what is the 

 remedy ? For years the rice planters have been employ- 

 ing men and boys to shoot the birds and drive them away 

 from the fields, but in spite of the millions slain every 



*See Farmers' Bulletin A'o. 54, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, en- 

 titled, "Some Common Birds," by F. E. L. Beal, B. S. 



52 



