﻿308 Canadian Record of Science. 



mouths of rivers and on the inland waters of the coast 

 region, subsisting largely upon wild rice. After leaving 

 the JSTorthern States they are commonly known as reed 

 birds, and having become very fat. are treated as game. 



They begin to arrive on the rice fields in the latter part 

 of August, and during the next month make havoc in the 

 ripening crop. It is unfortunate that the rice districts 

 lie exactly in the track of their fall migration, since the 

 abundant supply of food thus offered has undoubtedly 

 served to attract them more and more, until most of the 

 bobolinks bred in the North are concentrated with 

 disastrous effect on the South-east coast when the rice 

 ripens in the fall. There was evidently a time when no 

 such supply of food awaited the birds on their journey 

 southward, and it seems probable that the introduction of 

 rice culture in the South, combined with the clearing of 

 the forests in the North, thus affording a larger available 

 breeding area, has favored an increase in the numbers of 

 this species. The food habits of the bobolink are not nec- 

 essarily inimical to the interests of agriculture. It simply 

 happens that the rice affords a supply of food more easily 

 obtainable than did the wild plants which formerly 

 occupied the same region. Were the rice fields at a 

 distance from the line of migration, or north of the 

 bobolinks' breeding ground, they would probably never be 

 molested ; but lying, as they do, directly in the path of 

 migration, 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. 



The annual loss to rice growers on account of bobolinks 

 has been estimated at $2,000,000. In the face of such 

 losses it is evident that no mere poetical sentiment should 

 stand in the way of applying any remedy which can be 

 devised. It would be unsafe to assume that the insects 

 which the birds consume during their residence in the 



