RICE TROOPIAL, OR BOB-0-LINK. 



449 



There is a stripe of brown-black passing from the eye over the ear-coverts, and the whole 

 of the lower parts are black streaked with creamy white. The young males resemble the 

 females in their colouring, and as they advance in age present feathers of -the characteristic 

 black and red in different parts of their plumage. Not until several years have elapsed is 

 the male joyous in his full plumage, and it is seldom that a perfectly black and scarlet 

 bird is found, some of the feathers generally retaining their juvenile brown and bay. 



;J 



FEW of the American birds 

 are better known than the RICE 

 TIIOOPIAL, which is familiar over 

 the greater part of that con- 

 tinent. 



No American zoologist omits 

 a notice of the Rice Troopial, and 

 there are few writers on country 

 life who do not mention this little 

 bird under one of the many names 

 by which it is known. In some 

 parts of the States it is called the 

 RICE BIKD, in another the RED 

 BIED, in another the RICE or REED 

 BUNTING, while its more familiar 

 title, by which it is called through- 

 out the greater part of America, is 



BOB-O-LlNK or BOB-LlNKUM. It 



also occasionally visits Jamaica, 

 where it gets very fat, and is in 

 consequence called the BUTTER 

 BIRD. Its title of Rice Troopial 

 is earned by the depredations 

 which it annually makes upon the 

 rice crops, though its food is by 

 no means restricted to that seed, 

 but consists in a very large degree 

 of insects, grubs, and various wild 

 grasses. 



Like the preceding species it is 

 a migratory bird, residing during 

 the winter months in the southern 

 parts of America and the West 

 Indian Islands, and passing in 

 vast flocks northwards at the com- 

 mencement of the spring. Few 

 birds have so extensive a range 

 as the Eice Troopial, for it is 

 equally able to exist in the warm 

 climates of tropical America and 

 the adjacent islands, and in the 

 northerly regions of tlie shores of 

 the St. Lawrence. 



According to Wilson their course of migration is as follows : " In the month of April, 

 or very early in May, the Rice Buntings, male and female, arrive within the southern 

 boundaries of the United States, and are seen around the town of Savannah in Georgia 

 about the fourth of May, sometimes in separate parties of males and females, but more 

 generally promiscuously. They remain there but a short time, and about the twelfth of 

 May make their appearance in the lower part of Pennsylvania as they did in Savannah. 



2. GO 



RICE TROOPIAL, OR BOB-0-LINK. 



