BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 207 



and eggs are described by Dr. Coues as follows : " The Bobolink makes 

 a rude and flimsy nest of dried grass on the ground, and lays four or 

 five eggs, 0.85 long by about 0.63 broad, dull bluish-white, sometimes 

 brownish-white, spotted and blotched with, dark chocolate or blackish- 

 brown surface marks, and others of paler hue in the shell. The nests 

 are cunningly hidden, and often further screened from threatened ob- 

 servation by ingenious devices of the parents." (From Birds of North- 

 west.) The food of these birds, during their spring sojourn in Pennsyl- 

 vania is composed chiefly of different kinds of terrestrial insects, also 

 the seeds of various weeds, grasses, etc. I have examined the stomach 

 contents of twenty-seven Bobolinks (captured in Chester county, Pa., 

 May, 1879, '80, '82 and '83), and found that eighteen had fed exclusively 

 on beetles, larvae, ants and a few earth-worms ; five, in addition to insects 

 and larvae, showed small seeds, and particles of green vegetable materials, 

 apparently leaves of plants; the four remaining birds revealed only 

 small black and yellow colored seeds. After the breeding season the 

 Reed-birds (both sexes), about the middle of August, again make their 

 appearance in our meadows and grain fields. At this time, although 

 various forms of insects are abundant, they subsist almost entirely on a 

 vegetable diet. They visit the cornfields, and, in company with the 

 English Sparrow, prey to a more or less extent on the corn ; like the 

 sparrow they tear open the tops of the husk and eat the milky grain. 

 Fields of Hungarian grass are resorted to and the seed eagerly devoured. 

 The different seeds of weeds and grasses which grow so luxuriantly in 

 the marshy swamps and meadows are likewise fed upon with avidity. 



The following interesting remarks, relative to the Rice-birds, are taken 

 from the annual report of the Agricultural Department, for the year 

 1886, by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, ornithologist, United States Department 

 of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. : 



" One of the most important industries of the southern states, the cul- 

 tivation of rice, is crippled and made precarious by the bi-annual attacks 

 of birds. Many kinds of birds feed upon rice, but the bird which does 

 the most injury than all the rest is the Bobolink (DolicJionyx oryzivorus). 

 * The name of " Rice-bird " is familiar to most persons in the 

 north, but the magnitude of its depredations is hardly known outside 

 of the narrow belt of rice fields along the coasts of a few of the southern 

 states. Innumerable hosts of these birds visit the fields at the time of 

 planting in spring, devouring the seed-grain before the fields are 

 flooded, and again at harvest-time in the fall, when, if maturing grain is 

 'in the milk,' they feed upon it to a ruinous extent. To prevent total 

 destruction of the crop during the periods of bird invasion thousands 

 of men and boys, called ' bird-minders,' are employed, hundreds of thou- 

 sands of pounds of gunpowder are burned, and millions of birds are 

 killed. Still the number of birds invading the rice fields each year 



