JENKS] NATURAL ENEMIES 1027 
clubs in mud-bhottomed waters in hunting preserves to attract such 
fowl for shooting. ' 
Many descriptions are given of clouds of blackbirds, redwing black- 
birds, and ricebirds which subsist on the grain during and immediately 
after its milk stage.” Rails, pigeons, quails, herons, cedar birds, wood- 
peckers, and many other birds also consume the grain by feeding from 
the heavy stalks.* 
Caterpillars have been known to destroy an entire crop of wild rice 
in the neighborhood of Rainy river.| Mr Pither mentions a worm 
which eats into and destroys the grain in Manitoba, Canada.’ This is 
probably the ** maggot,” which is the larva of the water weevil (L/s- 
sorhoptrus simplex). The **maggot” isa very small white legless grub: 
it destroys the plant by working in its roots, while a beetle, the 
water weevil just cited, eats the leaves of the plant.° 
A fungus, Entyloma crastophilum, Sace.(4), works in the sheath of 
the grain,’ while Claviceps sp. also works on the plant,* and in Japan 
the fungus Ustilago esculenta attacks the shoot. * 
A fungus, Claviceps purpurea, occurs quite commonly on the grain 
in northern Wisconsin, where the Indians speak of it as ‘* frozen 
rice.” In its early stage it consists of a profuse growth of mycelium 
in the tissue and on the surface of the young ovary. The product is 
a compact, horn-shape, dark body called the sclerotium, which occu- 
pies the position of the displaced ovary. The sclerotium lies dormant 
during the winter, and in the spring germinates by forming tiny 
spores which free themselves, and begin growth in the tissue and in 
the ovary, as is told above." 
Storms, frosts, and floods cause great, doubtless the greatest, dam- 
age to wild rice. ™ 


1 See chapter vi for the consumption of wild rice by these game birds. 
2 The most common of these blackbirds, all of which are fond of wild rice, are the purple grackle 
( Quiscalus quiscula), the boat-tailed grackle ( Q. major), and the rusty grackle (Scolecophagus carolinus). 
The redwing or swamp blackbird ( Agelaius phaniceus) forms large migratory flocks in the autumn 
in all of the Northern states, and becomes very destructive to the grain. The ricebird, reedbird, or 
bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) is the natural bird enemy of wild rice, and is found in countless 
numbers in all—both brackish and fresh water—wild-rice marshes during the autumn. 
3 Pither, letter, December 5, 1898: McKenney, Memoir, vol. 11, p. 104; Hind, Narrative, vol. 1, p. 118. 
The sora rail ( Porzana carolina), the yellow rail (P. noveboracensis), and the black rail (P. jamaicensis) 
feed upon wild rice. The sora rail is especially common in fresh-water wild-rice marshes. For ref- 
erences to great numbers of waterfowl in Minnesota, see Schooleraft, Indian Tribes, vol. 1, pp. 186-187, 
vol. Tv, pp. 193-194. For the waterfowl] on Fox river, see Brown, Western Gazetteer, pp. 261; also 
Schoolcraft, Summary Narrative, p. 183, and Featherstonhaugh, Canoe Voyage, vol.1, p. 
4See chapter vi (page 1100). 
5 Pither, op. cit. 
6L. O. Howard, Insects Affecting the Rice Plant, in Rept. of the Commissioner of Agric. for 1881 and 
1882, Rept. of the Entomologist, pp. 127, 138. 
7Wm. Trelease, Preliminary List of Wisconsin Parasitic Fungi, in Wis. Acad. Sci., Lit., and Arts, 
yol. v1, number Madison, 1885, p. 139. 
Sibid., number 66, p. 115. 
®Matsumura, letter, December 16, 1898, with reference to Henning’s Hedwigia, Band xx X1rv, 189, p.10. 
WLucius E. Sayre, A Manual of Organic Materia Medica and Pharmacognosy, etc.; Philadelphia, 
1895, p. 439. 
See chapter vi. Very little scientific attention has been given to Zizania aquatica; consequently 
the present treatment of its enemies is scanty. Answers to letters of inquiry lead to the conclusion 
that more careful attention will be given it in the near future. 


