ZOOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT. 87 



FAMILY ICTERID./E. STARLINGS, BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES. 



Generally insect feeders, a few eat corn, some fruit, on the whole our friends; 

 generally gregarious; eggs usually much speckled, often marked with zigzag or 

 broken lines. 



GENUS DOLICHONYX SWAINS. 



Bobolink, male, reduced. 



2O5-494-(312). Dolichonyx oryzivorus (Linn.). * BOBOLINK; SKUNK BLACK- 

 BIRD; REED BIRD; RICE BIRD; BOB LINCOLN; ORTOLAN; BUTTER BIRD. 

 Very common; Southern Michigan; summer; May (one of the latest birds to arrive) 

 to September; male takes the plumage of the female in the fall; beautiful singer at 

 nesting season; not shy; breeds; nests in June, usually in meadows, on the ground; 

 eggs five, occasionally six to seven, bluish white, marked with dark brown specks; not 

 in Central Michigan until within a few years; I first noticed it about the college in 1874; 

 "first in Monroe County in 1872'' (Jerome Trombley); Dr. Atkins reports it very 

 common in 1875 but very rare until 1874 at Locke; " first seen at Plymouth forty years 

 ago" (J. B. Purdy); Dr. G. W. Topping says that it first appeared at DeWitt in 1881, 

 and was numerous from the first; I have reports of this bird as far north as Benzie 

 County, in the Southern Peninsula, and Mr. E. E. Brewster, of Iron Mountain writes 

 me that it occurs rarely at that place. 



GENUS MOLOTHRUS SWAINS. 



Cowbird, reduced. 



